Michael's Corner

The Boy Who Walked with God

By

Michael DeStefano

Love is fleeting. Death is eternal. Or is it the inverse? It is but one dilemma foreshadowing a boy. Another is that he is God’s instrument, wielding the power to reshape the lives of those he cherishes. Each pursues with equal vigor.

BOOK I

A WAYFARER’S PURGATORY

At a time commonly referred to as the crack of dawn, a boy, perhaps age fifteen, settles a door into place without a sound and sets his feet upon the road. He will carry in his heart the weight of an ultimate act. We shall call the boy Andy.

     Swiftly, Andy ambles through the dark dawn of a sleepy hamlet until he reaches the cornfield, a place of idyll where he and Karen would lie in a row, the tops of their head touching and conducting the vibrations of each utterance. They spoke of discovery, philosophy, friendships, and a shadowy time called the future. Unmentioned during these periods of teenage idyll is the depth of depravity an adoptive sister endures. The reality would prove too startling for a boy in the autumn of youth. Or would it?

     Before long, he arrives at the railroad tracks on the outskirts of town. He turns eastward. Why? He is far nearer to the Atlantic than the Pacific and has never seen an ocean.

     Mile after mile, Andy trudges—a solitary youth alongside a railroad track. It leads to a wood where a growling tummy harmonizes with chirps and other woodland echoes. He veers from the tracks to a road and trusts Highway 308, and a sign that reads Welcome to Clintonville would prove a gateway to filling the hole in his belly.

     Name a country in any hemisphere, and Andy could rattle off a town or ten, yet Clintonville—a town a mere county over, unlike the far-flung places he hoped to explore—was foreign. He took in the countryside and saw what one would expect: scenery that rambled until it reached the horizon. He swallowed feelings of momentary gloom and recalled the rules for itinerant orphans: You are not lost if you never knew where you were in the first place. Fear no journey. There is no point in fearing the unknown when you know nothing. Equilibrium is as close as your next step.

     Down the road, Andy came upon a repair shop, a ramshackle old hut. He found it curious that a place meant to fix things appeared in disrepair. He peeked through a filmy pane and saw car parts scattered on the floor. The sound of metal striking metal echoed outside the shop. Andy followed the sound; it led him down a chip stone driveway, where a tractor stood. Bent at the waist, with his head hovering over the engine, was an old man. His wavy white hair and ungroomed beard of equal whiteness were features that first struck Andy. Next noticed was a narrow, intense gaze. Andy approached with mild trepidation. The oldster continued tinkering. Andy watched with a measure of curiosity before calling, “Sir?” He lingered longer than it should have taken for the oldster to unbend his waist and acknowledge another presence afoot. Andy kicked gravel and cleared his throat as one might after swallowing a gnat, then settled on the notion that a man who restored old tractors for a Saturday hobby was willfully ignorant or hard of hearing.

     Finally, the old man turned his gaze upon Andy. The demeanor with which he uncoiled and faced his visitor gave Andy the impression the oldster was aware of his presence all along. Resisting a grimace, Andy called, “Good afternoon, Sir. Or is it still morning?”

     The old man tugged on his sleeve, revealing a wristwatch band stretched to where it required the meatier part of his forearm. “Says here, it’s still mornin’.” It was apparent in the man’s expression that he was unbothered by an unexpected intrusion and grateful for an opportunity to unbend his waist and relax his gaze. “What can this old man do for a young fella on a Saturday mornin’?”

      “I’ve been on the road for a spell and could use a bite. If you wouldn’t mind steering me in the right direction….”

     The old man took a handkerchief from his shirt pocket and patted his brow. He peered over Andy’s shoulder at the road where he expected to see a vehicle and said, “I was about to break for a bite myself. Got plenty of leftover chili inside.” He gestured toward his shop. “You’re welcome to half. The missus sends me with enough for an army. You know how it is.” Assessing Andy, he chortled and said, “I take that back.” 

     Andy winced when imagining food that sat for a day in a ramshackle hut that served as a repair shop. He envisioned a plate sitting atop a well-stained countertop next to an oily rag that served as a napkin and a spoon with the hardened remnants of the first go-around. After taking in Andy’s twisted expression, the man offered the concession, “I guess cold, day-old chili doesn’t sound appetizing.” He cleared his throat and said, “A bite to eat; I didn’t forget,” then directed his unexpected visitor to Butler Road. “A mile and then a left. They call the place The Way-Out Diner. She’s not much to look at, but she’ll fill that hole in your belly.”

     Andy glanced over his shoulder at a garage that appeared a gust away from a pile of rubble, then grinned that the oldster had assessed an eatery as unappealing. As he turned to leave, the man said, “I have a good feeling about you, Son. You’re gonna make it.”

     The man’s words echoed curiously. Of course, Andy would make it; he had but a mile to walk. Or had the man implied something else? Andy turned to ask, but the oldster had his back to him, his head buried in an engine, and thus went his ability to hear.

*****

     What transpired between Andy and the oldster was hardly the launch of a relationship, but it made the road seem less daunting. Still, the man’s parting words haunted Andy.

     As Andy would soon discover, there was nothing faulty with the oldster’s eyesight: The Way-Out Diner was an eyesore. Foremost, it lacked accord with the road, which meant the road was subsequent or the builder unpardonably careless. Another theory was that some folks have quirky ideas concerning how things should appear. This rural monstrosity, which may have had a coat of paint applied to it after falling to Earth and landing askew, became novel for its appearance and would remain so, assuming it doesn’t go up in flames: it was a fire hazard, ignoring every known code, which wasn’t rare for establishments situated in areas some call the middle of nowhere.  But how does the maxim go: Don’t judge a book by its cover? Legend has it the establishment earned its name when Claire Haskins bellowed to her husband, “Harley, what are you doin’ building a diner way out there?”

     Boisterous men sporting unkempt beards with rifles slung over their shoulders came spilling from the diner; they were reminders that Andy was a boy in a man’s world, a rough man’s world with little tolerance for an interposing youth. With an ear to the door, Andy listened to a diner brimming with local commotion. Dismayed, he reached for his bare chin and prayed he wouldn’t be the only one not brandishing a mechanism capable of stopping a charging full-grown mammal. Suddenly, cold, day-old chili didn’t sound unappetizing.  

      Strangers in strange places imagine they are magnets for every set of eyes. Andy was tall and lean and had a long chin and ears that one might describe as generous. He did no favors to his gangly composite by how unnaturally erect he stood. Moreover, since he was trapped in the throes of an outlier’s deportment, he failed to notice the only soul in the establishment that qualified as a peer until upon him. She broke his gaze into open space with a hand on his elbow. Her tacit greeting was a smile that chased Andy’s trepidation; it seeped from his pores, and his shoulders slumped. She escorted him to a table suitable for a lone diner, then handed him a sticky, well-smudged, wood-burned menu. 

      “Kinda historic when ya think about it,” she said when observing the gingerly manner Andy handled the dirty wooden board darkened from age. “Some important folks have dined with us; there’s no tellin’ whose prints are on the wood. If you’re wondering about the specials, there’s none this weekend; it’s just whatcha see on the board.” 

     “What’s Dante’s Inferno?”

     “It’s what folks around these parts call chili. But how would you know? You aren’t from around here. But doncha worry none, soldier; I won’t hold it against you.” Next came a wink. Andy struggled to imagine what he had in common with a girl who referred to her hometown as “parts.”

     “I’ll have the number five.”

     “The whoop-ass double-decker beef?”

     “Yeah, that one.”

     “Too much a gentleman to call it by name? That’s okay, soldier; I won’t hold that against you, neither. Hope you like horseradish. A beer with that?”

     “Milk.”

     “You’re joking, right?” Meeting Andy’s gaze, she said, “Why, you’re just full of surprises, are n’tcha, soldier?”   

     Country pretty with a siren’s eyes would best describe her. A torturer of men would be another. Yet she ambled about insensibly to what Andy alleged was clear and present danger—men as tough as the coal, steel, and timber from which they earned their livings—or it was she who was the wielder of peril. Andy was nearing the end of his number five and milk in a mason jar when the siren reappeared. Her wispy blonde locks hung in loose tendrils against her neck and cheeks; she wore her blouse untucked and bowtied above a flat, creamy midriff; her blue jeans were a second skin, announcing with emphasis her below-the-waist assets of which everyone took appreciative notice. She stopped and planted herself alongside Andy’s table and struck a pose that saw her place a delicate hand on the table’s well-marked wood, balance her person utilizing a boot-clad foot no bigger than a child’s, and curl her free leg around the plant one. She maintained this precarious carriage with the grace of a ballerina. Before long, she swayed as though she might fall into Andy’s lap. What saved her was whipping the hand she had tucked behind her back onto the table. Invading Andy’s space, she uttered the breathy words, “Where ya from, soldier?” 

     Andy guessed  “soldier” was a term the girl used on unfamiliar young men when her objective was for them to become less unfamiliar.

     “A bit west of here.”

     “I see you’re readin’ Huck Finn.” Her eyes shifted down to where the book rested. “Folks around here aren’t much for readin’, not unless it’s magazines on fishin’, huntin’ an’, taxidermy.”

     “I read it this past winter.” He saw no sense in passing judgment on the latter.

      “Then why are you carrying it around?” Aggressively, she took hold of it. After peeking inside the cover, her eyes flared. Indicative of an adversarial tone used by a girl whose trust got mishandled, she asked, “Who’s Karen?” 

     “Someone I used to know.” Suddenly, cheeks that had flushed from female incursion drained into sadness. 

     “Everyone’s gotta past. But that don’t mean ya gotta stay stuck in it. Besides, the future’s more exciting. And while we’re on the subject, where ya headed, soldier?” She followed what she hoped would prove a restorative question, adding, “Not home so soon, I hope. This town can be a nice place to visit if ya catch my drift.”

     Andy’s mouth turned to dust. For one so petite, it was alarming how imposing the girl made herself; she was far more in consonance with the psychology of womanhood and its potency than Andy was with manhood. 

     “East, to visit relatives,” came his alert fabrication despite the thread of the conversation fraying in his mind.

     “Must be nice to have relatives.” The girl was not soliciting sympathy but giving Andy a subtle gradation to presume her situation. “Incidentally, soldier, I checked the calendar this morning, and I saw nothing tellin’ me it was a holiday, so I’ll bet those relatives of yours won’t mind waitin’ on ya for a spell.”

     She was not proud. There were aspects of feminine mystery she could ill afford.

     Andy searched the wall for a clock as though no issue was more paramount than time. “I should get going,” he feebly uttered. Keeping to the notion he was not a lost cause, the girl intoned, “What a shame. ‘Cause it’s a funny thing, opportunity; it doesn’t knock when convenient, and most generally, we get only one bite at the apple. But…” She paused and sighed to emote resignation, “…I’m a girl with a heck of an intuition for folks, and I’m bettin’ you’re the type that would rather do something every day to make his mama proud than sweepin’ a girl off her feet.”   

     “That might be true had I a mother to make proud.”

     “Looks like you and me are in the same boat, soldier. It may not be a cruise ship, but at least she’s afloat.” 

     Andy grimaced at the girl’s well-chosen allegory, then brightened that such a vessel would seem friendlier with another occupant. 

     “You be sure and stop in on your way back from those ‘relatives’ of yours.” Sliding her hands across the table to further crowd Andy, she whispered the breathy words, “By the way, the name’s Darlene. Just wanna make sure you know who to ask for when you return. Trust me, soldier, you and I will meet again.”

     Darlene had no lasting memory of a mother; she was too young when the woman who bore her—a teenage runaway—made an unceremonious departure from the world. Raised by a man whose ambition to unload his daughter no sooner than she displayed signs of womanhood became the prevailing tenet that oriented this mid-teen siren. Darlene was thirteen when her father sent her to The Way-out Diner, where unsuitable men made crude overtures. Two years have come to pass. Every night, she returns home and is greeted with the same contemptuous sneer—like someone late paying rent—for failing to land a man willing to take her off her father’s hands.   

     Andy sputtered. Following an incoherent hodgepodge, he managed a word that bore a resemblance to his name.  

     “It was a pleasure to finally meet you.” He could taste Darlene’s breath; it was not unpleasant. “We’ve been waiting for you, Andy.” She pecked his cheek and disappeared. It was not until Darlene was out of sight that Andy became conscious that he had grown accustomed to the strain of her presence. Already, he felt lonely.

*****

When a matter is the degradation of a family, there is plenty of blame to share. The world is chock-full of perpetrators, agitators, victims, and deniers; everyone has a role to play. The characters are designated by the potent, assigned to the manipulated, and thrust upon the weak; it is rare to discover a bystander and even rarer to find one willing to act, sparing no thought for their wellbeing with an initiative to put matters right. But it can happen. It most definitely can.     

     Andy’s encounter with Darlene became a prevailing preoccupation; her voice stayed stuck in his head; he heard his abstractions and ruminations echoing back at him in her sultry intonations. Theorizing that Darlene was all façade—a lost soul obscuring a bleak reality using the tools available; an actress immersed in a role that had evolved into a perfunctory routine—a girl who relished the comfort of companionship sparked the desire to double back. But Darlene was miles away, and her parting words were no less haunting and incongruous than those of the tinkering old man.

     Andy entered Moshannon State Forest, bounding between the spirit of adventure and the reality of a lost and solitary soul. Such peaks and valleys gushed upon him without warning, as did the dilemma of where he might lodge. And yet the parting words of a tinkering old man and waifish beauty continued to echo, as did his final encounter with Karen, not in their idyllic cornfield but in her darkened room at a desperate hour. All three were issued stern evictions but remained stubborn antagonists.

     Hours had passed since the day began. Our wayfarer traversed a forest road walled in by countless tons of timber. How was it possible the Earth’s floor could support so much weight? How many trees have sprouted from the floor of a planet of many wonders? Was there one for every person who ever lived, or ten? The world would never run out of oxygen. How vast and incomprehensible was the physical world; if every tree were tossed into its oceans and sank, would sea levels rise… an inch? Pondering matters of wonder can make one feel fantastically insignificant—a transmigratory universal speck floating around infinity, owning a bearing and consequence too small to measure.

     The Earth turned. The sun is at Andy’s back. Deer emerge from the forest in tandem. With grace and timidity, these gentle, majestic forest dwellers make their vigilant venture across the road, then bolt into the Moshannon’s southern tracts. Andy gives chase, but the denseness of the forest quickly camouflages their long, loping strides. Keeping to the trail, he spots picnic tables and benches; beyond these typical woodland accommodations, a pond. In the pond floated a rowboat; two patient men had their cast lines submerged. Andy used to watch men cast their lines in a local brook and wanted to give fishing a whirl. Karen reviled fishing; she considered it an act of human barbarism perpetrated upon creatures devoid of limbs to defend themselves. “How would you like to die from suffocation?” she once asked Andy.

     The sun sparkled on the water’s surface; the arching branches of every tree encircling the pond received mirror-like replication, their reflections as perfect as stalactites in a cave pool. Andy kneels on the pond’s bank, submerges his hands, and draws water to splash on his face and moisten his hair. Before journeying on, he slumped at a picnic table. Using his index finger, he traces a heart carved on one of the planks that help make up the tabletop. In it is the inscription Gary and Jen ‘73. Directly across are Mickey and Louise ‘69; their names required a larger heart. At the other end was the claim Zack was here ‘63. Zack hadn’t a lover to carve into a heart; perhaps he was but a youth. Whether accommodating soul mates or souls still searching, the picnic table marked history: From Kennedy’s assassination to Apollo 11 to the Paris Accords—a turbulent decade. The table hosted two more pairs of lovers; the year was 1969: George and Pat, and Becky and Lee fell in love in a year marked by Woodstock and the Amazin’ Mets. Years attached to events that shaped the times were all represented—good and bad. Andy searches the area for a sharp stone. When he is through toiling, he takes a moment to admire his handy work: An unknown traveler, ‘77—the year President Carter pardoned evaders of the Vietnam War.

     The sun hung low; it would soon disappear. Fifty minutes span the sun’s vanishing, the moon’s arrival, and a night sky edging toward the peak of darkness. Strange, the matters one must consider when deprived of accommodations, friendless, and a wayfarer. Days ago—three, to be precise—Andy listened to cheers cascading from the stands as he all but lapped another field of milers. Karen sat among the captivated attendees, beaming with pride over his performance. Andy could always decipher Karen’s cheers echoing from the crowd.

     From adulation to an itinerant tramp: the fall was too far, precipitous, and novel to rationalize—his journey too young to embrace or advocate a palpable goal—still, he clung to the notion all souls are hardwired to a force both grand and omnipotent. 

     Andy purported to have seen enough trees for a lifetime. Moreover, with dusk shadowing the land and poised to introduce darkness swifter than he would have preferred, he prayed the forest would end sooner than later, for a tunnel formed by trees could prove daunting in the dimness of night and rouse his worst thoughts to prevail. He craved open space, Earth’s expansiveness, and knowing that above hovered the wonder of empyrean and all its cosmic capacities. He imagined in a darkening vista the outline of a town, its dots of light—anything reminiscent that vital forces making up civilization occupied the finite world. 

     Indeed, darkness can prove a formidable foe and a tester of faith in the wilderness. But the Moshannon was not an endless wilderness that claimed its share of impulsive travelers. It ended. A lonely road that served as an unwavering companion became Highway 144. Still, the night wore on. Darkness, in its entirety, had set upon our wayfarer. There no longer prevailed a delineable vista to urge on an ill-vectored entity faltering, fraying, gritting with consternation, his skull walling in fear until fear became the only impetus. Anomalous questions and sentient thoughts bleed from his weary consciousness: Was today still today? Indeed, the Earth must have rotated more than once. All those Andy knew, past and present, became a collage of faces he failed to discern. Worse, they took no notice of him, this specter wandering a lonely road, gazing skyward toward the realm of empirical cosmology, hoping for divine mercy. Who are any of us at the core of existence but transmigratory souls traversing from vessel to vessel upon a pathway to infinity, or drops of water evaporated from an ocean to the ether, returned to Earth as rain to a brook, trickling to a stream, gushing to a river that returns us to the sea? There is too much blackness between the stars. How could the deific prevail among all that shadowy nothingness? Is it only to oblivion that the world’s lost children, the desperate and ill-oriented, may cling? Every step, every elapsed second, represents a curtain drawn on the past. To only have a future was a feeling both foreign and peculiar; it was equivalent to knowing only uncertainty or akin to knowing nothing. As Andy was discovering, doubt was a strange ally, but peace, by whatever means, must be made: One must convince oneself that an uncertain future is more promising than the past from which one fled.

     Highway 144 turned into Sycamore Road. The wide-open spaces craved, now in abundance, did not send his spirits soaring as he had hoped. Before long, he uttered aloud, more for the company of a voice than confirmation concerning that which he suspected palpable, “Is that a light I see in the distance?” He was doubtful, even distrusting. But the light was not trickery to one whose weary mind had resigned to its conviction of eternal darkness; it was as real as Earth’s only satellite that stubbornly keeps its distance. The nearer Andy got to the light, the more he gained in equanimity, and should it prove a roadside eatery, he would be demonstratively appreciative.

     The sign would have read The Snowshoe if not for the bulb behind the w burning out. Illuminated double-u or not, The Snowshoe was a known stopover for fishermen and snowmobilers of the Moshannon and others traveling east. Inside, the kind face of a forty-something woman greets Andy. Her name tag reads Regina. Her gentle tone possesses all the calm a weary traveler could hope to hear. Andy sags the way one might when fully submitting oneself to a person worthy of trust. Regina—a woman who ignored steely-gray locks that did not mix particularly well with the fawn-colored majority—in Andy’s judgment, was a bosom to a babe; one could allow themselves to fall backward and have every confidence in a safe landing.   

     “You look a bit road-weary, young fellow,” Regina remarks. “Been driving all day, have you?” Andy suffers a lapse in deportment. The untimely consequence is a burst of caustic laughter—ironic laughter contrary to humor. “I beg your pardon. Did I say something funny?” Regina maintains all the graciousness her job requires, though a discernible arch of a brow betrays what she thought of Andy’s laughter.

     “My apologies,” Andy cried. “I passed road-weary hours ago and am working on punch-drunk.”

     One might infer that passing road-weary hours ago meant Andy covered hundreds of miles and reached the center of Pennsylvania from another state—the western reaches of Ohio, if not Indiana. Regina assessed Andy as too green for a trip of such length.

     “If that’s the case,” she proposes brightly, “we’ve got a meatloaf with mashed taters and gravy guaranteed to revive anyone.”

     Andy sagged in his chair. With eyes floating in their sockets, he said, “Sounds like a slice of Heaven.” Regina smiled. It revealed a strange irony that left Andy feeling unsettled. Before Regina skipped off to the kitchen, she asked—it was a passing curiosity, not a concern— “What’s your destination?”

     “I was told Lock Haven is a good town.”

     “Lucky for you, you’re not more than twenty miles out.” Regina paused and warned, “Funny thing about destinations: sometimes you come upon them sooner than you realize. A young traveler would be wise to remember that.”

     The Snowshoe drew locals, or what there was of a scant local population, but served mainly as a roadside stopover for travelers and adventure seekers of the Moshannon; many of the cars in the lot had camping equipment in tow. Andy scanned the sparsely attended dining area. Something struck him: The paradoxical look that came over Regina when he assigned the idiom a slice of Heaven to his dinner selection was apparent on the face of every diner. Moreover, the collective anomaly did not alter when a couple, well-seasoned, entered The Snowshoe. Wariness beset their aged faces, their bearing analogous to that of those who failed to imagine how they came to be at a particular place in time or dreaded why they were summoned. They sidled to a booth in the corner. Andy observed their effort. Next, a man, stout of form, abandoning a hand of solitaire, rose to his feet and began a resolute march toward the kitchen. As he neared his destination, his steps grew hesitant. He stopped, sighed, and then disappeared through the swinging doors.

     “Who was that man?” Andy asked Regina.

     “You must mean George,” Regina intoned. “He’s been dining with us for years. He had a friend with whom he used played chess, but the friend has long since moved on. Lately, George has resigned himself to solitaire.”

     “Is he allowed in the kitchen?”

     “No one can access the kitchen unless summoned by the cook,” Regina explains.

     “I didn’t hear George’s name called.”

     Regina places an assuaging hand on Andy’s cheek. “You weren’t listening,” she said before making her way to the old couple in the corner.

     The farcicality Andy entertains begins to unsettle him. His day’s journey, the encounter in Karen’s room that marked its impetus: had it happened as he alleged, or was an increment of time, otherwise a day, a gross distortion of the truth, an existential catastrophe? Indeed, the notion of The Snowshoe as a waiting room where souls gather before being granted passage into a renowned place of idyll must qualify as absurd, as too is the notion he failed to survive the day’s journey.

     Amid the smattering resonates familiarity; possibly, their deaths were a shared experience. Some seem too reconciled for their demises to have been recent affairs, and they have long since viewed death as a humorous irony, a way of escaping a fraught world. The concept of death is too novel for the couple in the corner; thus, they sit and fret. They are older; their lives require more review before passing the threshold dividing The Snowshoe and Paradise. They eye the swinging doors separating the kitchen and dining area with misgiving, for it is a gateway to the unknown. Andy shakes what he resolves are illusory and incoherent thoughts from his head and settles The Snowshoe as a place comprised of folks who, like him, are passing through, weary from the road and hoping food and a respite will revive them before continuing their journeys.  

     How far away was Darlene? The more time and distance separate Andy from a random girl who made a lasting impression, the more she manages to creep into his thoughts—the better he asserts to know her. The lost children of the world have a story. Andy had fabricated one for Darlene; thus, what passed as a brief and flirty encounter augmented to possess substance and meaning that otherwise may not have blossomed and whose measure had increased by the hour and mile. And there he sat, a stranger to everyone, a road-weary traveler longing for a familiar face, one owning the facility to revive him more than what he idiomatically called “A slice of heaven.”

     The pleasing fabricated reverie of Darlene vanishes. What chased it away? Regina. Her reappearance jarred Andy, but the plate of food she brought was a welcome sight, one that cautioned our wayfarer that his lassitude was more significant than he realized. He would take his time with each morsel, then spend the night lying in the cool grass alongside Sycamore Road, his backpack for a pillow. And thus, the metamorphosis would see its completion: Andy as an animal, a survivor, a loner, who strayed from the pack, growing accustomed to living hour-to-hour, scavenging a forbidding landscape for whatever sanguinity it offered.

     “Hope you saved room for dessert,” Regina chirped when she returned to check on Andy. “I’ve got a slice of pecan pie with your name on it.” That his name was assigned a designation, no matter how insignificant, drew a chuckle from our road-weary traveler. Whether his belly could accommodate it, pie and coffee entitled him to keep his seat.

     When Regina returned, Andy asked, “Why am I the only one eating?” Regina replied, as though nothing could be plainer, “You’re the only one whose body still requires sustenance.”

     “I don’t understand.” The wayfarer’s twisted expression pleaded for an explanation. As Regina sat and faced Andy, another rose to their feet, tossed aside a newspaper for which they seemed grateful to no longer feign interest, and began their plodding walk toward the kitchen.

     “Is he going to see the cook?”

      Regina nodded.

     “Am I going to see the cook?”

     “Not tonight, Andy. The cook no longer requires your presence. It’s rare, but sometimes we’re premature in our judgment. The cook has decided your work isn’t through.”

     “Did I…” Andy dared not utter the word.

     “Die?” Regina interjected. Then she smiled at Andy and asked, “Does it matter?”

     “How did it happen?”

     Paradoxically, Regina tells Andy, “Your pie is getting cold,” and walks away.

     One by one, the locals and travelers awaiting their summons disappeared through the swinging doors to the kitchen. Only the elderly couple remained. With gratitude and trepidation, Andy exits The Snowshoe in favor of a cool night under a glittering country sky. Before long, the lights will dim in The Snowshoe, leaving only a gibbous moon and tiny points of light to shine down on our traveler. He prays that Regina, who intuited a troubled soul and thus showed kindness, won’t notice that he has made the roadside grass a lodging when she departs.

     Prone to the Earth’s floor, Andy feels the world turn. A car approaches; its headlights pierce the dark. Regina places herself in the front passenger seat of a sedan that takes her away. Everyone belongs to someone except the lost children of the world; they are of a lesser god.

     The events of recent days whirl in the head of one trapped in a wayfarer’s purgatory. He turns his gaze from the Heavens he prayed were beyond the empty blackness that accounted for the vastness of the universe to across the way, where still glowing were the comforting lights of The Snowshoe. His ears picked up the faint chugging of a freight train in the distance. The glow of lights, the chugging of a train: both were signs that, however fraught his existence or precariously he dangled, he endured a biospheric entity, a viable creature with capacities to effectuate, unequal bearing notwithstanding.

     He imagined the glow from within The Snowshoe threw warmth and reconciled it was no coincidence a mile-long freight train chugged in the distance or that countless cicadas collaborated to render a symphony for a boy gone off the grid. But the coziness of such fanciful notions ended when the lights in The Snowshoe dimmed. The cook left the premises. Andy had but one device remaining: trick his senses into imagining he could still hear the faint chugging of the train in the distance, a repetitious serenade that echoed across a rural nightscape.

*****

The night air did not settle without a nip; only someone who walked from dawn to darkness could shrug it off and sleep. He did not experience, despite nary an expectation of waking in a bed—an awareness that remained uncompromised—a fitful night’s slumber. It was, however, eventful, as Andy’s subconscious invited a parade of incongruous episodes, a stream of unconscious impressions with similar beginnings and different endings.

     On a table, in plain view, are lovely, delicate hands; they belong to someone broken and craving love. Darlene? But wait, something is amiss, out of character. The diner is desolate; the unexpected anomaly engenders dismay. Where are the men, those boisterous steel, timber, and coal producers? Andy’s eyes rove a dark room filled with empty chairs and tables, then set them once again upon the hands of the nymphet. Had he, unwittingly, his consciousness in tatters, doubled back to Clintonville? Darlene, you waited for me! The notion of a girl, perhaps a kindred spirit, hastens the essence of joy; thus, hands, once the source of female incursion, are a comfort; he wants to reach for them, touch them, even kiss them, and pray they would lead him past a threshold to a place of peace, where only exquisite sensations may thrive. He allows his eyes to travel the length of Darlene’s arms—so sinuous, so fair. At the end of his traveled gaze, he sees not the face expected but that of a man—a face twisted into hideous distortions, perhaps a malevolent satyr or hellish beast; its vileness frightens Andy. He recoils.  

     “What’s wrong, Andy?” the creature hisses contemptuously. “You don’t recognize me? Don’t you know who I am?”

     Andy shudders at the man’s vileness, the shrillness of his voice.

     “I was quite handsome in life, wasn’t I, Andy?” A cautionary tenor resonates; the malevolence in the man’s eyes softens. He pauses and offers a grin, mordantly paradoxical. No sooner than Andy saw past the distortion hell made of the man’s face, his vileness returned with the force of a raging storm at sea. “It’s what we are on the inside that we end up looking like for all eternity. You would be wise to remember that, Andy. Do you hear me? YOU WOULD BE WISE, INDEED!!” 

     Again, Andy’s gaze is drawn to Darlene’s hands spread prettily atop the table. Wary of allowing his eyes to travel the length of her arms, an impalpable force compels him. Before he could glimpse Darlene, her face had dissolved into a mist. In its wake, he sees a young girl—so delicate, so innocent—carried off by the vile creature. On her face glows an expression of serenity one might wear when insensible to danger or fooled by a trickster or, worse, a fiend. Andy’s heart sinks, realizing the girl’s expression is not one of serenity but resignation, for it is apparent she understands the danger but hasn’t the will to resist and is carried off without a struggle. The fiend glares back at Andy; its laughter is hideous. Andy is desperate to rise, to dash off and rescue the girl, fight for her life, or bargain for her innocence, but he cannot pry himself from his chair. He cries out her name, but one’s own voice cannot travel in dreams. 

     A third time, Andy takes in the nymphet’s hands. A third time, it is not her face that greets him when he raises his head. Moreover, the scene has altered; he senses a different ether. No longer visible are empty chairs and tables in a dark, lifeless room. Miasma—if he is still within the diner’s walls—impedes the expected, however illusory. The effort of standing springs without awareness, yet he is on his feet. Walled in by mist, he narrows his gaze to penetrate the thickening layer when he spots a shadowy figure in the distance. No discernible traits are apparent on the figure—neither shape nor size—as it advances upon him in wraithlike movements. Andy shudders that the mysterious figure is a phantom or malefactor. He recoils as it emerges through the thickening layer. Its form grows larger and larger, its manifestation increasingly ostensible until she reveals herself a sister attired as one would when belonging to a Catholic order. Serenity is evident in her mien. When their gazes meet, the sister’s lips form the inaudible words, “Thank you.” She nods meekly and, from her knees, presses a cheek to Andy’s hand, then returns to the mist from which she emerged. 

     “Who are you?” Andy cries. There is no sober reason to suppose the sister traveled years across time to express gratitude, but it is an unquestioned belief that Andy clings to. 

     The mist dissipates, revealing anomalous desolation. Emboldened, Andy reaches for Darlene. Chosen by an incorporeal authority, she is his gateway to the subconscious universe—a shapeless zone where the past, present, and future converge—and he wishes, through her, to summon the sister, to thrive in her godly presence, to feel through her touch intimations owning capacities to imbue his soul with the malleable nature of mercy. His fingertips contact Darlene. The consequence is a jolt; it sends him spiraling through the universe, time, and eternity and plants his feet in a dewy, shadowy wilderness at the onset of dawn. He is not alone; alongside him stands a child, tiny and frail—an angelic luminosity hides that it has suffered an illness. Andy cannot look upon its face; an imperceptible force, an unknown entity, prevents him. The child takes Andy by the hand and leads him through the wilderness. Piercing the dense ether, they glide above the coolness of the grass, passing that which is familiar: scenes of childhood, the present, and, strangely, the future.

     “How do I know these places?” he asks of days yet to come. The child ignores his entreaty. Their journey ends at the bank of a lake. There they stand, Andy and the tiny child, their feet pressing into the cool earth. The child, whom Andy theorizes to be an androgynous dwarf gifted in the art of sorcery—though its mannerisms are strangely familiar—waves a hand and says,  “You can see it, can’t you, Andy? That one day, all will be as it should?”

     Andy pleads with the child, “But why can’t I see you?”

     “One day, you shall.” The child walks away. Andy’s feet remain fixed to the earth; he cannot follow.

     “Wait!” he cries. “Where are you going?”

     The child turns its gaze upon Andy; its face is but an impression in the misty dawn. It points and vanishes to an unknown dominion. 

*****

Andy woke refreshed. The grass alongside Sycamore Road proved sufficient. He went tearing into The Snow Shoe, seeking Regina.

     “The world is clearer than ever,” he gushed. “I saw everything; I know what I’m supposed to do. Tell the cook I said ‘thank you’ and that he won’t regret giving me a second chance.”

     “I beg your pardon,” Regina intoned. “Do I know you?”

     “I…I don’t understand.” Faltering as though the universe reshuffled the deck and all matters misaligned, Andy reached for the door.

     “Just a moment,” said Regina. “Are you Andy?”

     “You remember!” Andy cried.

     “Remember what? I only meant to say someone left this for you.”

     Andy regarded the envelope with suspicion. He tore it open and read:

     I warned you we’d meet again, soldier. The forsaken children of the world are its true angels. We walk the Earth unheralded, unloved, or worse. We are humanity’s conscience and must bear all human failings. Often, we must bleed so that others can heal. Because of you, Karen survived. Now, it’s time to move on. There is much work to be done. 

     Andy opened the door just as a man was passing through. “Good morning, Sir,” Regina called to him. “Your kitchen awaits you.” The man turned to Andy and winked. The morning sun illuminated his wavy white hair and beard. Andy let loose the laughter of irony. “Of course it’s you,” he said of the tinkering old man. “Of course, you’re the cook.”

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• Bluesky

BOOK II

IN SEARCH OF BLUE SKIES

Lock Haven sits between the banks of the Susquehanna River and Bald Eagle Creek. With a downtown featuring Gothic Revival churches, museums, tree-lined streets with quaint shops, lamp posts dotting the sidewalks, horse-drawn carriages touring out-of-towners, and rambling hills bellying through vistas, it’s no wonder it’s dubbed the crown jewel of central Pennsylvania. Andy ducked into The Bald Eagle, an airy and buoyant café featuring terra-cotta floor tile, stucco walls, tapestries, and an artificial waterfall that trickled into a pond containing fish claimed to have been caught from Bald Eagle Creek, though most locals disbelieved the latter and suspected the fish were store-bought. 

     “My old man’s been fishing Bald Eagle Creek since Eisenhower,” said Phil, a café busboy, to another, Harold. “He never caught anything that looks like what’s floating in this goddamn pond.”

     When he saw she had a free moment, Andy approached Molly, the young woman who greeted and seated patrons of The Bald Eagle. “Might I have a word with the manager?” he asked.

     “The manager and owner are one in the same,” she said, still winding down from the lunch rush; her moon-shaped face and buoyant curls had yet to settle. “Would you like to speak to the owner?”

     Amused, Andy said, “Sure, let’s try the owner.” 

     “Was everything all right with your meal?” Molly struck a guarded pose—an employee with a vested interest. The Bald Eagle was a family affair, and Molly was unaccustomed to fielding grievances.

     “It was superb,” Andy said, hoping to ease Molly’s protective deportment.

     “And the service?”

     “Stellar. I want to inquire about picking up some work.”

     “Oh,” Molly intoned. “Wait here. I’ll fetch my uncle. His name is Mister Schultz.”

     Before long, a stout man of imposing width, Andy guessed was Mister Schultz, emerged from the kitchen. He was atypical of a restaurateur; a longshoreman or construction foreman suited his form. Anyone would find his narrow eyes, bulbous nose, and hulking physique menacing, and “anyone” included Andy. Luckily, Wilbur Schultz’s tone and manner lacked accord with his appearance. The owner of The Bald Eagle gestured to an open table. Andy followed.  

     “Looking for work, if I heard correctly?”

     “I am.” Andy felt encouraged. Molly warned her uncle why he was summoned, and instead of returning to shoo Andy away, her uncle made a swift appearance.

     Wilbur Schultz acknowledged how capable Andy appeared but could only offer kitchen help, which was a revolving door lately. Andy, sparing no concern of acting over-eager, readily accepted.

     “I take it you attend the local university.” The question surprised Andy.

     “No, Sir,” he replied, without bothering to explain that he was nearing the end of his freshman year of high school.

     The next leap in logic saw Andy as a high schooler looking for part-time work he could parlay into full-time come the summer. Why would Wilbur Schultz assume otherwise? Andy, mindful of sounding assertive but not demanding, said, “If it’s all right with you, Sir, I’d like to start working full-time tomorrow if possible.” Thus came the next logical leap; it placed Andy at the end of a high school career, a commoner of sorts, desperate to scratch out a living regardless of how meager. It marked a head-scratcher for Wilbur Schultz, as Andy, a young man, fit of form, with clear, intelligent eyes, hardly fit the description of a young man down on his luck. Wilbur Schultz’s narrow eyes probed, but all he could infer was that something seemed askew; there was a missing piece to what he alleged was a puzzle sitting across from him. He considered rescinding his offer. Then, the puzzle inquired about a place he could afford on a dishwasher’s salary. No sooner than the utterance settled in Wilbur Schultz’s ear, the missing piece settled into place; it completed the puzzle.  

     “Christ!” Wilbur Schultz growled, his demeanor shifting to match his form. “You flew the coop!” Thrusting his arms upward, he waved his hands as one tends to when thinking aloud. “Every spring, they come out of the woodwork, these rebels looking for a cause. They stay put through winter, then, no sooner than the snow melts, all their brazenness gushes out.” Looking squarely at Andy, he asked, “Have you ever noticed that?” 

     “Can’t say that I have.”

     “Take my advice, kid; hightail it home,” Wilbur Schultz urged. “Trust me; you’ll thank me one day.”

     “If I could do that, Sir, I wouldn’t have come here asking for a job.”

     The solemnity in Andy’s tenor disarmed Wilbur Schultz. Still, the Bald Eagle’s proprietor gibed, “Whatcha do, knock up some teenybopper and are running scared-shitless from her crazy old man? Andy frowned. With a wave of resignation, Wilbur Schultz intoned, “Forget about it, kid. If you wanna work my kitchen, be my guest; it’s safer than running away with the circus.”

     Wilbur Schultz was not one to delve into a crowded sphere known as the world of troubled teens; what would it cost to give Andy a break? Meanwhile, one who fell from grace would work his fingers raw for low-end wages, a scenario that would chase him back to wherever he had fled.

     “They might have a room for you at Blue Skies; it’s a boarding house of sorts.” Andy was sure he saw Wilbur Schultz grimace. “Okay, it’s a halfway house. Margret Cleary—she runs the joint—prefers it not to have the stigma of a house only suitable for those whose lives, for whatever reason, fell into the crapper. I’ve known Margaret Cleary for years and can vouch that Blue Skies is safe and well-run. I’ll put in a word that she should expect you.” Wilbur scratched out directions and barked, “First thing tomorrow morning! Eight o’clock sharp!”

     Spring flowers don’t grow from nothing. Andy was not a block from The Bald Eagle when Mother Nature—throughout his travels, she had shown herself cooperative if not merciful—unleashed her fury. Dark clouds chased the sunshine and hastened a shower, followed by a wind-driven downpour. Instead of searching for Blue Skies, Andy sprinted back to Highway 220, where earlier he spotted The Jolly Roger, a roadside inn.  

     He entered the lobby, winded from sprinting; rainwater dripped from his skin and jacket. Behind the check-in desk sat Wally Frick, a petite man, spectacled, with a miserly endowment of hair, save for the unattended wisps above his ears and nape. Wally Frick had entered his third decade manning the same lobby from the same well-worn chair. A head in a downward tilt with eyes buried in yesterday’s newspaper was the bearing he chose when pretending not to notice Andy’s presence. Feigning ignorance was Wally Frick’s way of punishing Andy for appearing a winded and bedraggled mess dripping rainwater on his carpet. Andy made a coarse throat-clearing noise; it prompted Wally to utter, without sparing an upward glance, “A bit moist out there, I take it?”

     “You noticed that too, huh?” Andy’s derision matched Wally Frick’s. Then he asked about a room.

     “Sign says vacancy, don’t it?” said Wally Frick, still pinned to yesterday’s newspaper.

     Andy wanted out of his wet clothes, and all that stood between him and a hot shower was a dismissive little man more interested in testing patience than renting rooms. Andy placed the palms firmly on Wally Frick’s desk, puffed out his chest, and uttered decisively, “I’ll take a room.” 

     “Be twenty-five bucks,” said Wally Frick. He adjusted his spectacles further down the bridge of his nose and shifted his eyes upward, taking in the peculiar array of features that made up the face of our traveler. It was not a courtesy; Wally Frick was curious to see how Andy would react to the cost of a room. 

     Andy separated twenty-five dollars from a wad of soaking-wet bills. The arithmetic was troubling, but he had procured a way of replenishing his till. He peeled his gaze from Wally Frick to a wind-driven downpour that showed no signs of waning and weighed the value of not having to slumber in cool, wet grass. He slapped the cash on the desk. Frowning as though he had every expectation the cost of a room would chase Andy back into the rain, Wally Frick reached for a key. Before handing it over, he said, “A driver’s license?”

     Andy’s torso deflated. Why a driver’s license? A twinge of panic that the world was more daunting than expected surged. Feebly, he reached into his back pocket for an item he knew wasn’t there.

     From a puffed-out chest to the innocence of boyhood, the pendulum had swung. Again, Andy glanced at the wind-driven downpour. Resetting his eyes on Wally Frick—it was now Wally displaying a loss of patience—he asked, “Why a driver’s license?” 

     “Motel policy. We like to know that folks are who they say they are. In the event you’re a fugitive from justice, and the police come snooping around, we wanna do our part.” Smugly, Wally Frick added, “Call it community service.”

     Andy explained, “I just arrived in town this afternoon… on foot. I start work tomorrow at The Bald Eagle. You can call and ask Mister Schultz; he’ll vouch for me.” 

     “Working for ol’ Shultzie, are you? Nice place, The Bald Eagle.” Wally Frick handed over the keys as Andy signed for the room. “But don’t think I won’t call over there ‘cause I will. You see, we roadside motels get all types: cheatin’ husbands and wives, wayward women, men peddlin’ all sorts of material the law don’t find favor with; every other person that walks through that door is either a John or a Jane Doe.” With a scornful chortle, Wally Frick added, “If they only knew,” then tapped his head to advise he was the owner of a mind from which nothing escapes. “I have to give you credit, kiddo; Andy Truman is original.”

     “It’s Trumaine.” With key in hand, Andy felt empowered to rebuke Wally Frick for mispronouncing his name—it was a purposeful misspeak—and reveal a demeanor of disdain for whatever qualms the little man harbored concerning Andy’s character.

     “Truman, Trumaine, have it your way,” Wally Frick intoned. “I can usually tell when folks have something to hide, and when a fella your age comes passing through all by his lonesome wanting a room, a salty old sonofagun like me gets to wondering, what’s he running from? Who’s looking for ‘im? But, as you claim, you’re workin’ for Shultzie. We shall see.”

     Andy turns a key. Inside, he steps, sheltered from the rain, the adventurous road, and the darkness of night. He peels off his wet clothes and drapes them over the baseboard heater, which he cranks to a toasty temperature. Huck Finn remains in good condition despite his backpack soaking up its share of rain. He lays both items, along with his wet bills, on a nightstand, then indulges in a shower until the water turns tepid.  He lies down his lengthy nakedness, surprisingly weighty and justifiably lifeless, atop a typically uncomfortable motel mattress. He regards himself as a mid-teen might, but the predilection for onanism eludes him. Numb from weariness—his ears experience the peculiar whir absolute silence tends to create—he remains motionless, pondering solitude and aloneness. They lack kinship, diverging beyond the realm of corporeality: solitude is a choice, a sabbatical from people; aloneness is a state of mind, a wretched disposition of being. Bright and early, he will return to The Bald Eagle. It has only been days—days walking, encountering an old man and nymph… or were they angels?—yet it seems an eternity since last he made a return trip to a familiar place.

     Next, he glances over his shoulder at the other nightstand, flanking the bed. Atop sits a telephone. While journeying, Andy experienced nary an impulse to call the place he once called home. Yet, there he lay, alone at a roadside inn—a youth desperate to keep a weighty past from colliding with the present while grasping an uncertain future whose olive branch is an ambiguous message delivered to him by a ghostly dwarf in a dream—longing to hear a particular voice. Did he yearn for a voice, or was it availability stoking his desire? He considers ripping the jack from the wall and, to quell further temptation, tossing the phone into the parking lot. Turning to regard the bills laid to dry atop the opposite nightstand, it finally occurs to Andy that Wilbur Schultz became so distracted guessing his predicament, and he, in turn, got drawn into Wilbur Schultz’s distraction, the matter of an hourly wage never made it into the discussion. Again, he regards the intact phone; it remains the object of a pensive gaze. He reaches for the receiver and withdraws as if clutching it would prove an act carrying irreversible consequences. He begins wearing out the carpet, agonizing over what to say—depending upon who answers—should he overcome his misgivings. Finally, he grips the receiver and presses it to his ear, but his mouth turns to dust no sooner than his finger comes one number shy of completing the familiar sequence. He sidles into the bathroom for water. Upon returning, he recognizes the sweet resonance drifting in from the west; it gently fills his ear like a lullaby. 

     My God, Karen, what have we done? Will God forgive us? In that ambiguous place we call a soul, will we ever see a day when we can close our eyes and know it was all worthwhile?   

     Andy wants to say all that and more but fails to utter a word. He remains quiet as the loveliness at the other end, three times, beckons the caller. Andy hears a click as Karen Trumaine settles the receiver into its cradle. Andy crawls back into bed. His body is weary; his emotions reduce him to tatters. Karen prevails as an albatross until Andy succumbs to exhaustion. 

*****

     Andy strolls into The Bald Eagle at 7:45. His employer, accustomed to younger staff members showing up in the nick of time or a few ticks tardy, greets him pleasantly. Wilbur Schultz escorts Andy to the kitchen and explains his duties. “She ain’t glamorous, kiddo,” and gives Andy a healthy swat on the back.

     It was not glamorous; kitchens rarely are, but for a young man who, as Wilbur Schultz put it, flew the coop, the area at The Bald Eagle where food got cooked, dishes clanked, and steel pots rattled against steel countertops, creating a strident din, represented a refuge. 

     “Let me introduce you to Doc, our master chef,” said Wilbur. Wilbur gestured for Andy to stoop so that he could whisper in his ear. “I must warn you: Doc’s a man of few words and sometimes doesn’t talk. You’ll have to anticipate his needs. Good luck.”

     Doc acknowledged Andy with a begrudging nod.

     “Gotcha a new assistant, Doc,” Wilbur announced brightly. “A terrific kid, this time.”

     Without diverting his eyes from the stove, Doc muttered, “Swell.”

     “See what I mean,” Wilbur whispered to Andy before lilting away, leaving Andy alone with the master chef.

     Andy was not unfamiliar with intense-looking men—Jack Squirek, his running coach, among them—but didn’t understand intensity until today. More than Doc personifying intensity, he was alleged as too frightening to be alone with. He stood six feet plus inches and was two hundred pounds of scowl—a medieval executioner in Jimmy Carter’s America—a feudal warlord in a postwar society. And those eyebrows! Dark, bushy, and intimidating—menacing features accenting a frightening face. Andy couldn’t help staring; to not regard Doc’s brows was akin to feigning ignorance of a glaring deformity or multicar pileup.

     Doc’s instructions, as Wilbur warned, came in the form of a word, if not a grunt, mimicking the distress of constipation. When Andy heard “broom” growled, it was time for a clean-up; Doc did not care to listen to his shoes crunching dropped food. Mop was growled in frustration; it annoyed Doc when an assistant required enlightening to liquid on the floor. The hand instruction echoed in a raised voice, which meant Andy had better drop whatever he was doing and assist. Pot meant not material to tamp in a bowl but step on it with the washing; I don’t have all day! The latter prompted Andy to attack pieces of cookware, similar to a katydid rubbing its wings. The only time Doc bothered to form what qualified as a sentence was when he needed something from the walk-in fridge; he didn’t want the newbie squandering half the day searching for food. Less than whimsically, Andy entertained the notion that below The Bald Eagle was a dungeon imprisoning Doc’s former assistants, suffering the vilest deprivations while awaiting their date with the executioner’s axe.

     After the lunch rush, Wilbur Schultz sauntered to the kitchen, over to Doc, and asked, “How’s it going?”

     Doc growled, “No complaints.”

     Paradoxically, Wilbur crooned to Molly after he and his stoutness went lilting from the kitchen, “Doc just made a goddamn speech; the kid must be a natural!”

     Indeed, Doc was a man of few words. Like some who work with their hands, he saw no need to chatter unnecessarily. Doc’s opinion was that most chatter, be it the weather or about a ballgame—matters of frivolity and fad—was unnecessary. Wilbur Schultz, who played fullback for the Division II Kutztown University Golden Bears, yammered to Doc about his alma mater and Joe Paterno’s higher-profile Nittany Lions. In every instance, he failed to lure Doc into a conversation. From the moment he donned his apron until he took it off, Doc personified concentration, which others interpreted as a permanent scowl. A true culinary artist, Doc had an artist’s temperament—a nature many find overbearing. Only Wilbur Schultz knew Doc beyond the walls of The Bald Eagle. Wilbur had gotten wind of a chef making a name for himself in Williamsport and managed to lure him to Lock Haven, or so the story goes.

     Come day’s end, Andy knew better than to wait to hear Way to go, kid, or Good first day; I hope you last longer than my last three assistants below awaiting execution.

     “Goodnight, Doc,” said Andy.

     Doc made a throaty sound resembling a word. Nevertheless, Andy sensed Doc liked him, though a favorable opinion would not take the sting out of what a day’s worth of dish detergent and water did to his hands. He was on his way to Blue Skies and a date with Margret Cleary.

*****

     The structure currently carrying the name Blue Skies began as a residence built in the late 1840s. It saw multiple iterations, including an army hospital during the Civil War, before becoming the Cleary homestead, over which Margret was the last to preside after caring for an alcoholic father wasting away with cancer.

     Andy rang the doorbell and struck a humble pose on the grand veranda of Blue Skies. No one attended his beckoning. He rang a second time to the same result and assumed the bell no longer functioned. Taking the lion’s head knocker in his hand, he pounded it against a steel plate fastened to a stout door. Before long, a tall, slim woman with graying hair pulled severely off her face and gathered into a tidy bun had appeared. Her plain charcoal-colored dress, which supplied an adequate backdrop for her heirloom pearls, revealed a swanlike neck and delicate wrists and stopped at the tops of her black shoes. She seemed well in accordance with Blue Skies; anyone might guess she was a curator of a home whose historicity lured tourists.

     “You must be Andy Trumaine.” A voice smooth as satin settled in Andy’s ears; it was as cozy as burning wood on a winter’s night. “I’m Margret Cleary. Wilbur said I should expect you.” Her mien twisted when adding, “ But that was yesterday.”

     “I had some difficulty with the weather,” Andy confessed. “I appreciate you letting me stay at Blue Skies, Missus Cleary, despite being a day late.”

     “A day late or a week; I’m not letting you do anything.” Margaret Cleary’s words carried a surprising snap. Andy’s head, which he bowed respectfully, jerked upward; his eyes widened. “You’ll be paying your share, just like everyone else. And it’s Miss Cleary, thank you very much.”

     Andy stepped back, fearful that Margret Cleary had a concealed weapon on her person and was prepared to brandish it liberally. He dared an upward glance and saw a smile form on Margret Cleary’s face. He knew at once the steward of Blue Skies was having fun with him. “Come in, Andy. I’ll give you the grand tour.” Margret Cleary placed a long, slender, reassuring hand on Andy’s shoulder. Her charcoal housedress remained undisturbed as she ambled in and out of many rooms with decorous posture and poise.

     “We don’t keep a long list of rules at Blue Skies, but those kept are abided by unwaveringly: Breakfast is at 6:30, dinner at 6:30, and the front door is locked at ten-thirty p.m. sharp. There are no exceptions to the latter. We don’t tolerate any late-night carousing. Also, we pray.”

     Margaret Cleary’s affecting use of the word “we” amused Andy. “Over the years, we have had all sorts: recovering addicts and alcoholics, men who have gambled away everything but the shirts on their backs; those who wash up on our shore have lost all they had to lose, save for their souls, and some came dangerously close. But, through structure, working an honest job for a fair wage, and surrendering to a higher power, bit by bit, they can piece back together their lives. Everyone here was once young and filled with hopes and dreams. Unfortunately, life, if we allow it, and sometimes even if we’re on our guard, has a knack for kicking us to the curb, and often, those who get kicked find ways to punish themselves. But there’s always hope on the horizon—or, as we say around here, ‘Blue Skies.’”

     Margaret paused to allow Andy to ponder the essence of the haven she created.

     “I don’t mind admitting I was skeptical; I don’t usually take in itinerants, especially youths. But since Wilbur vouched for you, and I had a free room…” Andy shrugged as one would when promising their presence would not prove a nuisance.

     “One more thing, Andy.” Margret Cleary abandoned her satiny-smooth wood-burning tone for sternness. “At Blue Skies, we respect one another’s property and privacy, and regardless of what brought us here, our core principle is that we are all equal in God’s eyes. Now wait here; I shall not be too long.”

     Margret Cleary disappeared, leaving Andy alone in a sitting room featuring walnut panels, brocade fabrics, and a bookshelf built into a wall comprised of Twain, Faulkner, London, Dickinson, Steinbeck, and Hemingway volumes. Andy scanned the opuses, including the spots where he deduced White Fang and Of Mice and Men were missing, then grew distracted by the clanking of eating utensils against plates. He heard no exchange of words, which could indicate superb food or lousy company; Andy prayed for the former. Margret Cleary returned with a bathrobe. Andy followed her to the cellar. “I’m guessing your clothes haven’t been laundered for a spell, discounting the rain.” A sheepish grin came over Andy. “Foolishness gets around,” he said.

     “Our less redeeming aspects have a knack,” Margret Cleary added paradoxically. “But we needn’t dwell on that. I’m much more interested in hearing how you like working for Wilbur?”

     “It’s fine,” Andy replied. He wanted to say more, but what could he add to a day in the life of a kitchen lackey? Finally, it occurred to him, “Mister Schultz said you and he have known one another for years.”

     “He didn’t happen to mention how many years?” Margret Cleary paused long enough for Andy to reply but received an ineffectual shrug. A thoughtful look came over her—her bearing softened to a state of wistful ambiguity, akin to one preparing to ponder a regretful past. “Wilbur took a shine to me our senior year of high school, and I didn’t mind the attention. He asked me to the prom, and I didn’t hesitate. Wilbur was handsome in a rugged way. He played football; he might’ve told you. Father didn’t care for football or men of brawn; he was urbane; he enjoyed peaceful pursuits. Come the evening, Father would read and play the violin. He played well and favored Schuman; Scenes from Childhood was his favorite. Father sneered whenever Wilbur called on me, and, in those days, I wasn’t a strong enough girl to be at odds with her father. School ended. Wilbur went off to play football at Kutztown. I felt abandoned and grew to resent Father; it led to making rash and immature decisions, like running off with Kenneth Harrington. Kenneth had big dreams and the ambition to pursue them. I let him sweep me off my feet and carry me to Pittsburgh, where he fulfilled his dream of becoming an architect. Then Kenneth, as it has been known to happen in marriages, grew bored. Well, anyway, I suppose that’s the way it goes. And now I’ve returned to the home of my childhood.”

     Margret Cleary paused. She felt strangely unburdened. “I never told that story to anyone,” she said. “I can’t say why I felt compelled to tell you, but I’m glad I did.” She continued gushing to her youthful confessor until her voice faded into silence, her gaze distant, her thoughts far away, or perhaps as nearby as an across-town café. Shedding her wistfulness, Margret Cleary told Andy, “Just this once, I’ll launder your clothes. They’ll be placed outside your room, which is up the main staircase to your right, the second-to-last door. For now, use this robe.”

     Our traveler crept to his room, placed Huck Finn in a nightstand drawer, and collapsed in bed. As he had when pressed into the tall grass alongside Sycamore Road, he listened to the faint chugging of a distant train, a mechanical symphony echoing in the night. And then his lids drooped shut. Come morning, he delighted in the sun’s early rays, imagining himself a flower compelled by their properties or any entity owning the capacity to harness energy. Not until his cloudy head raised from his pillow and he rubbed the sleep from his eyes did he remember Margret Cleary’s 6:30 a.m. breakfast rule. What impression would it make on his cohabitants if the newbie, a boy in a man’s world—doubtless that latter would be the perception—screwed up his first Blue Skies breakfast? He launched his lithe and lengthy form from a forgiving mattress, jumped into the clothes awaiting him outside his door, and tore down the hall. Upon hearing the squeaking his feet produced on the 130-year-old floorboards, he stopped and cringed that his brief stampede incited numerous scowls below.

     Blue Skies is a living, breathing piece of history. With each footfall, its pre-Civil War construction, aside from reminding its inhabitants of a bygone era, tends to talk back, sometimes loudly. And despite its limited vocabulary, it’s a house with a lot to say: every corner and nook, ornate moldings, panels, and fixtures, tell a story that marks an era. To live at Blue Skies is to brush up against history; one could sense the spirit of antiquity when placing a foot on its grand veranda.

     When tiptoeing on the staircase, sunlight breaking through a round window above the front door blinded Andy. Fearful he was tardy or cut it too close, he scampered as lightly as his feet allowed toward the kitchen where Margret Cleary and his ten co-habitants had already gathered. His throat constricted when upon him set, in unison, ten sets of eyes; Margret Cleary had yet to look his way. Were these men not made aware that among them dwelt a boy—Daniel in the lion’s den? Eyes were bearing in on him from every angle, forcing his gaze upward, thus allowing him to locate a clock high on a wall that announced he had minutes to spare. The penetrating eyes of these men on the mend were not the result of Andy’s tardiness but curiosity: The newbie did not appear broken, just out of place.

     Andy assessed himself as the youngest occupant at Blue Skies by a wide margin—a man-child among a crew of salty old veterans. The range in age began with Joe Duffy, twenty-four, and ended with Corky Grimes, sixty-one. Everyone stopped whatever it was they were doing to greet the newbie, who observed breakfast as a community affair: One made coffee, another toast, one flipped omelets, another fried bacon, another squeezed orange juice, and all the while, George Peckinpaugh grumbled when reading aloud each item in the newspaper. George Peckinpaugh, generally, groused and bellyached and, upon scouring the newspaper, was given to opine that President Carter was “In over his head” and that “Not for a stale cigarette butt should we trust those goddamn Ruskies.” News of any kind failed to please George, but he delighted in the notion that he was enlightening his brethren. “If we have to be a bunch of also-rans with ex-wives and estranged kids, we might as well know a thing or two about the crumby world into which we’re about to reestablish ourselves, goddamnit!” That would more or less sum up the philosophy to which George Peckinpaugh subscribed. 

     Blue Skies comported itself as a collective; one might mistake it for a bed-and-breakfast where old friends staged reunions. Despite their fall from grace, thanks to Margret Cleary, no one felt ashamed to be there or that Blue Skies had become a necessary stage in their life. Ten men offered Andy a welcoming hand and showed him a place at the table. Like Margret Cleary, Corky Grimes detected something luminous in Andy’s mien.

     Using the cheeriest tenor he could summon, Andy strolled into The Bald Eagle’s kitchen and crooned, “Mornin’, Doc. How are you feeling on this finest of Thursdays?” Doc raised an imposing brow. Little else other than What the hell is so special about this or any Thursday one might infer from his tacit reciprocation.  

     And thus began a routine Andy imposed on Doc: cheery greetings in the morning, good nights in the evening, and, when an opportunity presented, inflated pleasantries during the day. But Andy never could goad Doc to sidle from the temperament that personified the culinary artist. Moreover, Andy could intuit where the imaginary line known as too far was drawn and did not dare cross it.  

     If truth be told, Doc liked Andy. Besides, what were the prospects of shaking a tree and having a cluster of non-complaining teenagers fall out, lining up to work as his kitchen lackey? “Trust me,” Wilbur Schultz told Andy, “if Doc didn’t like you, you’d know it; there’d be no need for guessing. Just last summer, Doc damn near decapitated a dishwasher when he heaved a pan across the kitchen. Petey Kostmayer was the poor bastard’s name. No one has seen hide or hair of him since.” Dropping his anecdotal tone, Wilbur added, “For Doc, food is like religion and just as sacred—like when Jesus broke bread with the apostles. For Doc, every meal is the last supper. Moreover, the sonofagun could turn paint chips and toaster crumbs into something to make your eyes roll in their sockets.”

     Andy phoned Margret Cleary to tell her not to save a place at the table, that he would fill his belly at The Bald Eagle. He hopped onto the grand veranda and noticed Corky Grimes’s nose buried in Of Mice and Men. The mystery was solved. Although the case of the missing novel from the Blue Skies library was not much of a mystery: Corky Grimes, with his well-weathered façade, more miles behind him than in front, and eyes brimming with wisdom and tragedy, could have walked out of the pages of any number of Steinbeck opuses.  Andy read Of Mice and Men over a snowy weekend in February. The sky had darkened. With only a dim porch light, it became too difficult for Corky Grimes to take in words on a page. As Corky uncoiled his legs and uprighted himself, Andy asked, “How’s it going so far?” After a day with Doc, he craved conversation, be it frivolous or poignant.

     “Oh, it’s going.” The consternation in Corky’s strained eyes brightened over Andy’s interest. Andy adjusted his posture to square himself to Corky; he hoped it would encourage the Blue Skies elder to engage him. “Where are you in the story?” he asked.  

     “Just finished the part where Curly beat on poor Lennie. Lennie held back as long as he could, then George let ‘im react. ‘Get ‘im, Lennie,’ George told him. Lennie caught Curly’s fist and squeezed ‘til it crushed. And I was damn glad he did it; I don’t like that sonofabitchin’ Curly.”

     “I didn’t care for him either.”

     “And I sure as hell didn’t care for Carlson putting down Candy’s dog,” Corky added. “And don’t take this the wrong way, being that you’re so young, but there’re plenty of folks I’d sooner see put down than a helpless animal. Doing in a loyal old dog just ‘cause it isn’t as useful as it once was doesn’t set right with me.”

     Andy winced. Corky Grimes’s brand of justice concerning old dogs and plenty of folks did not ring unfamiliar. With Andy’s shift in demeanor, Corky excused himself for the parlor. When going for the door, Andy noticed Corky’s limp and figured it was only natural an aging man, down on his luck, would feel more sensitivity than most for an old dog euthanized.

     In a quiet parlor, Andy learned how a boy, from age eleven, steered logs down the Monongahela River. The year was 1927: Charles Lindbergh, in The Spirit of St. Louis, completed the world’s first transatlantic flight and, in doing so, taught a youth how to reach, hope, and imagine. But steel and timber are magnets for men of the Rust Belt. Eventually, Corky Grimes would see a reprieve, but not a welcome one: a tour of duty in the Pacific theater of the world’s most epic war could make anyone wish for a life of steering logs down a river. Beyond learning to hold, clean, and shoot a Springfield and Thompson, the Army taught Corky to drink. Back on the river, steering logs, he fell through but had the presence of mind not to try to surface. Instead, he swam underwater and clutched a protruding tree root on the bank, narrowly avoiding the tons of lumber floating past. Like any fool not wishing to divorce himself from a vice, Corky credited not the cold water for instantly sobering him into making a swift decision that saved his life but the all too accessible moonshine he alleged to have boosted his bravery.

     His marriage began its steady erosion when the kids arrived, and wages got squandered on whiskey instead of decent shoes. With Elizabeth still a viable woman and his daughters nearly grown, Corky got thrown from a skidder, an accident that left his leg crushed, the damage permanent. Bouncing from one dead-end job to another, he coped with his pain and loneliness by reaching the bottom of more bottles than he could count. Finally, through the tool of faith, he learned perseverance. He parted company with what the Army taught him and what he perfected. The pain endures. Oftentimes, it’s persistent, if not intractable, and always a reminder. Sadly, the world hasn’t much use for an old logger with one good leg.

     “Strange,” said Corky, “but since you arrived, I no longer sense defeat and that my sins are no worse than any other man’s.”

     Andy was about to drift off when jarred by coughing and hacking that echoed from across the hall and moaning and retching next door. He was unsure of the arrangements, nor was he familiar enough with his cohabitants to assign the awful sounds to a given resident, not that he agonized over the matter; it was the price for coexisting with grown men who know a thing or two of sickness, withdrawal, and the long-range effects of warring against one’s body. He lay awake, wondering whether these bellowing bodily disturbances revulsed the willowy Margret Cleary. He went to the window and gazed at a streetlamp, throwing its light upon the glossy blackness of the road. The charm of evening juxtaposed with the sounds of broken men on the mend notwithstanding, he was grateful for the side of the glass he presently occupied.  

*****

     “I still say those goddamn fish are store-bought and not Bald Eagle Creek fish,” Phil groused to Harold.

     “It’s killing you, isn’t it?” Harold never passed up an opportunity to mock Phil’s pet peeves. “49 U.S. Marines died in Barcelona, Communism is rooting in Spain,  the Vietnamese can’t stay out of war, it cost us a king’s ransom to discover there’re rings around Uranus, and you reserve your vituperation for Schultzy’s fish! Let it go, for Chrissake!”

     “Vituperation? Whudda you do, sit up all night reading the dictionary? And just for the record, there’re no rings around my anus.”

     Harold and Phil recently turned sixteen and were nearing the end of their sophomore year of high school. Last summer, they started busing tables at The Bald Eagle. “We’re a tandem,” they told Wilbur Schultz. Amused by their it’s-either-both-of-us-or-neither-of-us tactic, Wilbur Schultz, store-bought fish and all, hired the “tandem.” Despite being opposites in most ways, they worked in tandem since early childhood. Good looks aside, Harold, with wit and charm, could manipulate the shirt off your back in January. Phil, conversely, was a strapping kid able to swat a hardball a country mile and shake off tacklers as though they were no more bothersome than a cluster of gnats. They could sum up their social contract using the five simple words: I got your back, buddy.  

     Harold’s father stocked a corner of the garage with cases of Pabst Blue Ribbon. He would grab and chill a few cans, ensuring they were ready when Joe Paterno’s Nittany Lions kicked off. Harold developed a custom all his own: it involved pilfering quantities his father wouldn’t notice missing. He would stash the thievery in his backpack. When enough had accumulated, come a given Friday, Harold would store his pack in the Bald Eagle’s walk-in fridge. At the end of their shift, he and Phil, cold cans in a sack, would head over to Triangle Park for what they dubbed A celebration of life.

     The two had taken a shine to Andy and occasionally sauntered to the kitchen to check whether Doc had Andy’s severed head mounted on a spike. Harold and Phil were also curious about Lock Haven’s newbie, who seemingly dropped in from nowhere and comported himself in a manner ostensibly not of their world. Upon arriving at Triangle Park, Phil, predictably, intoned, “What could be better than Friday night and cold beer?”

     “Saturday night and cold beer? But that’s just a crude guess on my part.” Harold turned toward Andy and mimed the hardy-fucking-har Phil never failed to bellow when reacting to Harold’s sarcasm.

     “And now, ladies,” Phil grandly intoned, “I shall offer a reply to my own question, thank you very much: For three maidens helpless to resist our charms—especially the charms of yours truly—to appear and offer us their bounty upon which to gorge. That, my compadres, is what could be better.” Inverting his chilled can, Phil emptied a liberal portion into his mouth and then treated the air to a wet, throaty aspiration.

     “He’s a real charmer,” Harold told Andy. “The personification of gravity for every unsuspecting postpubescent vagina this side of the Nittany Valley.”

     “A guy can be hopeful, can’t he?” Phil whined. “What’s life without hope?”

     “That’s deep, especially for you, Phil. And yes, a guy can be hopeful. But why rely on hope? Let’s hold hands and chant. Maybe we’ll summon those maidens on your wish list. But why limit ourselves? Let’s harness our collective energy and put in a call for Charley’s Angels.”

     Harold’s gift was humor; when others were a beer or two in, the laughs came easily. Simpering, Phil asked Andy, “You ever lay with a girl?”

     “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not exactly anyone’s idea of handsome.” Andy gestured to draw attention to his banana-shaped face and disproportionate ears.  

     “Not even once?”

     “Look!” exclaimed Harold. He pointed to where he was trying to draw Phil and Andy’s attention—it was a vacant area.

     “At what?” said Phil. “I don’t see anything.”

     “And you won’t because it’s where all the girls were told to line up should they wish to get familiar with your penis, you dumb bastard. Now, follow the narrative,” Harold pleaded. “No means no, not almost or sort of.”

     “Hardy-fucking-har,” Phil bellowed. Then he whined, “Aw, come on, Har, tell the truth; don’t I get the girls?” Like manliness run amok, Phil guzzled his beer, thumped his chest, and let loose another well-asperated belch.   

     “Sure thing, Phil. You’re the Lochinvar of Lock Haven.”

     “All right, Mister-I’ve-read-every-goddamn-book-in-the-high-school-library; who in the hell is Lochinvar?”

     Before Harold could reply, Andy said, “He’s the protagonist of a love poem by Sir Walter Scott.” Andy received an admiring nod from Harold, who promptly recited:

“So boldly he entered the Netherby Hall,

Among bridesmen, and kinsmen, and brothers, and all:

Then spoke the bride’s father, his hand on his sword,

For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word,

‘Oh! Come ye in peace here, or come ye in war,

Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?”

Then Andy joined in:

“I long wooed your daughter, my suit you denied;

Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like the tide

And now am I come, with this lost love of mine,

To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine.

There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far,

That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar.”

     “I’ll be a sonofabitch,” Phil bellowed. “It’s not enough to agonize through class, then work my fingers to the bone at The Bald Eagle; now I have to drink my beer with crackpot intellectuals who memorize poetry! Well, guess what? Lochinvar, or whatever the sonofabitch’s name is, that only you two bastards heard of: Once you get past all the fancy lingo, he’s just another dude tryin’ to talk a girl out of her skirt. And don’t get me wrong: I’ll give your Sir Walter Scott an A for style. But, at the end of the day, he’s no different than the rest of us: A horny sonofabitch hoping some girl’ll take pity on him.”

     “He does have a point,” Andy conceded.

     “There, you see,” said Phil. “I may not know the words, but damn if I can’t read between the lines.”

     “Come to think of it, I came close once,” said Andy

     “Go on,” urged Phil, eager for any particulars Andy was generous enough to offer.

     “I was having lunch in a diner in Clintonville…”

     “Now, wait just a second,” Phil interjected. “Are you telling us you hit paydirt under a table?”

     “Pay attention to the language, Phil,” Harold pleaded. “Andy said he came close. So much for reading between the lines.”

     “Hardy-fucking-har,” Phil bellowed before urging Andy to continue.

     “The place is called The Way-Out Diner because it’s in the middle of nowhere. It’s also a matchstick and a breeze away from incineration. It’s nothing like The Bald Eagle. Darlene waited on me—a real hard luck story, but capable of tempting the devil and scaring the bejesus out of a poor sap like yours truly. Not that I had the resources, but my instinct was to rescue her. She wasn’t shy about her intentions; I could feel her breath in my ear; she nearly fell into my lap. But, as I said, I tend to get a bit uptight around girls who are too forward—not that I’ve had all that much experience. Back where I come from, guys call muffing a situation with a girl ‘Leaving the bases loaded.’” Andy looked skyward, hoping Darlene would forgive him for using her anecdotally to enhance male banter.

     “That isn’t all you left loaded,” said Phil.

     “No doubt,” said Andy.

     “You said, ‘Back where I come from,’” Harold reminded Andy. “Where’s that?”

     “New Castle.”

     “That’s just north of Pittsburgh, isn’t it?”

     “That’s right.”

     “We heard you were staying over at Blue Skies, not that it matters to us,” said Phil. “But if you didn’t come to Lock Haven with folks, how’d you get here?

     “On foot.”

     “You may be as long-legged a sonofabitch as I’ve ever seen, but that’s some helluva trek.” Phil flared with incredulity. So did Harold. “Why on earth would you do that?” Phil keenly added.

     “To drink with the Lochinvar of Lock Haven.” Andy tried humor to deflect Harold and Phil’s attention away from his story of orphanhood and the subsequent years with Karen—subjects sure to spoil the promise of the evening. It worked. Alcohol has many purposes, not the least being a social lubricant. Andy admitted turning up in Lock Haven was no accident and was taking matters a day at a time.

     “Doc’s a real character, isn’t he?” It was Harold who decided a return to levity was in order.

     “That’s a generous assessment,” said Andy. “I’ve been working on him, incidentally. Haven’t made a dent but plan to keep trying.”

     “Careful,” warned Harold, “I hear those brows have a mind all their own.”

     “Is it that time of night when campers tell scary stories?” Phil shivered over the possibility Doc’s brows were an independent entity capable of all sorts of malevolence.

     Andy sensed the time was getting away. He knew Margret Cleary’s ten-thirty curfew was no trifling matter. As economically as possible, he explained the rules at Blue Skies and made a hasty and tottering departure. He dodged confessing to Harold and Phil that his experience with alcohol was equal to what his introversion and peculiar looks afforded concerning female intimacy. As his hand twisted the doorknob of Blue Skies, a vision flashed: one of paranoia, induced doubtless by what he consumed. Every resident of Blue Skies had assembled in the sitting room to the left of the front door and main staircase. They were awaiting Andy’s return—gathered to see whether the newbie would make it home before curfew. How dare this thoughtless waif return to a halfway house—a place where grown men teeter on a razor’s edge—soused in alcohol! Some—the saltier among them—rooted against the newbie, this insubordinate wayfaring man-child, and shouted to Margret Cleary, “He drank beer in the park! Throw him out!” But Corky Grimes—he had taken a shine to Andy—upon his weathered face revealed the wear of angst and prayed the newbie would appear before the prescribed curfew. In her stately housedress, Margret Cleary, posed with folded arms, raised a disapproving brow that the newbie cut it so close. But when Andy tiptoed past the foyer, he discovered the typical evening scene: Of Mice and Men was occupying Corkey Grimes, George Peckinpaugh read a section of the newspaper, thankfully to himself, Joe Duffy played solitaire with a Chesterfield dangling from his lips, and Margret Cleary, among her quiet company, sipped tea with a crossword puzzle on her lap and a Jack London opus handy should the puzzle frustrate her. The rest were gathered around the parlor’s television or had retired to their rooms.  

     The distance from the park to Blue Skies proves inefficient in sobering Andy to the point of having confidence in his condition; he would not discuss Of Mice and Men with Corky Grimes. Following an ineffectual wave, he tiptoes past the modest gathering to the staircase and makes soft footfalls en route to his room. He undresses and sprawls haphazardly atop his bed. A day that began seventeen hours ago ends in a whirling room. Using more agility than he cares to exert, Andy launches himself to his feet and paces the one-hundred-and-thirty-year-old floorboards, drawing forceful thrusts of air into his lungs. The spinning ceases, but the churning persists. Dashing to the bathroom, he splashes cold water on his face. Still, he grows sicker and then sicker, his head hot and then hotter. On hands and knees, he situates himself on the cold, hard mosaic. Through rapid breaths, he manages to recite:

“So stately his form, so lovely her face

That never a hall such a galliard did grace;

While her mother did fret, and her father did fume,

And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume

And the bride-maidens whispered “T’were better by far

To have match’d our fair cousin with young Lochinvar

     At Blue Skies—a haven for those once a breath away from losing their souls—down the hall, in the second-to-last room on the right, and into a toilet, Andy deposits his evening’s folly. Not once, not twice, but three times, he retches. Following his retching is a din mimicking an unsettling mixture of coughing and choking. Remembering another night, which saw him abandon his bed for a view from his window, mainly because of the disturbing sound effects coming from neighboring rooms, he rises to his feet and, with disdain, mutters to the miserable reflection in the mirror, “What a dunce.” Sober of head but the owner of a stomach that sufficiently emptied itself, Andy crawls back into bed. Six-thirty is a long way off. He wills away his hunger until his lids droop shut.

     Though earlier than usual, Andy was still last to the kitchen. Everyone did their typical pitching-in preparing breakfast while George Peckinpaugh, bearing his customary scowl, read aloud from the newspaper: ‘“Two 747s, one owned by Pan Am, the other by Royal Dutch, collide, killing 560.’ 560! For crying out loud, can’t anybody fly a plane anymore? It’s all you hear nowadays, disasters: Overturned semis, sinking ships, colliding airplanes; if society wasn’t in such a rush to get to its grave, maybe it could avoid a few along the way?”

     “It’s human error, George,” Corky Grimes somberly explained.  “It’s unfortunate, but in one way or another, human error occurs every day and everywhere; it’s why I’ve been limping around the past thirty years.”

     “If you ask me, it’s become too commonplace,” George grumbled. “Folks are whisked outa the world without a thought. It’s becoming so routine it no longer qualifies as distressing. Not finding tragedy alarming, my friends, means the end of humanity. The next ideological madman, God forbid there’ll be one, will find the going much smoother with a world desensitized to matters such as mass murder in East Timor and swaths of folks killed in disasters.”

     “Can’t argue with you there, George,” Corky conceded. “But whether it’s faulty mechanics or policies that lead to mass murder, human error’s a fact of life, and it’ll go on being a fact until the man upstairs rescinds free will.”  

     “Since Nam, Americans have developed cynicism for everything, and the media mirrors our suspicions and feeds it back to us,” said Joe Duffy. “Every disaster, natural or otherwise, they try to link to a policy—it gives them a chance to hold someone accountable, and scapegoating some poor bastard has become the newest American culture; it runs neck and neck with rock ‘n roll and burgers-to-go. Who are the victims, and who are the villains? The media isn’t satisfied with flames; it wants forest fires. The machine knows exactly how to tap into the dark side of our souls that still long for hangings in public squares.”

     “Well put, Joe,” said Margret Cleary.

     To clear a head of cobwebs—the breakfast discourse, while provocative, did not avail—Andy set out on a morning run. He came upon the bell tower at Lock Haven University. His next stop was Canal Park, where Azaleas, crab apples, and redbuds bloomed. Running within the boundaries of a place where he made connections and roots, however meagerly nourished, had sprouted and propelled his legs in the thick of a season rich in delight. Over to the Jay Street Bridge, he galloped before skirting along the Susquehanna River. One discovery after another marked a theme made effortless with the acquisition of work and friends. Like anyone whose basic needs had suffered precarity, Andy’s capacity to see beyond the present was diminishing.

     His efforts brought him to the town center. Well-lathered, he ducked into Forney’s Book Emporium. He went straight to fiction and the S’s, scanned the shelf, and stopped when his eyes came to rest on Travels with Charlie. He wanted to surprise Corky Grimes, but no sooner than he pulled the volume from its slot on the shelf, he remembered his cash was back in his nightstand at Blue Skies. He approached a man, assumed Mister Forney, and asked if he could hold the volume until tomorrow.

     “Not at all, except we’re closed on Sundays,” the man told Andy.

     “What time do you open on Monday morning?”

     “Ten. We’re a ten-to-five operation, save for Fridays when we keep the lights on ‘til eight.”

     Andy would have to cough up a lunch or wait until next Saturday. “Mister Forney,” he began.

     “I’m not Mister Forney,” the man said. “The name’s Blake. Old man Forney passed. Been nearly a decade. How time flies. But not at your age; you’ve all the time in the world. Folks thought I kept the sign as a tribute to old man Forney. The truth? I was too cheap to purchase a new one. Hence, the establishment remains as it always was: Forney’s Book Emporium but owned by Blake.”

     “Oh… well,” Andy sputtered, forgetting why he begged Blake’s attention in the first place. Recovering, he added, “Could you hold the book ‘til next Saturday?”

     “You like Steinbeck, do you?”

     “After Twain, he’s my favorite.”

     “Always been a favorite of mine,” said Blake. “Especially Travels with Charlie. What could be more endearing than a man and his dog discovering the country? Sure, I’ll hold it for you.”

     After his shift, Andy hobbled back to Blue Skies, discovered a grim Corky Grimes, and guessed the reason: Corky had reached the climax of Of Mice and Men. “Tough ending,” he said.

     “Ripped the heart right outa me chest,” said Corky. “Poor Lennie. It’s awful how the world works for some. I keep dwelling on it, reaching for a way it could have ended without George putting a bullet in the loyalist lifelong companion anyone could ask for. I’m coming up empty.”

     “He did it out of love,” Andy explained.” 

     “That’s some sonofabitchin predicament: the world choking a man’s soul to where he can only show mercy by killing? It isn’t George’s fault; the world has ways of twisting folks until they snap and do something they never dreamed of. I suppose, at the heart of the matter, George was no less prey to an unforgiving world than Lennie. But I’m a salty old fool with too much road behind him. Don’t listen to me; you’re better off taking advice from those crickets chirping in the hedge.”  

     Andy and Corky sat together on the veranda floor, their backs to the railing, pondering the ways of the world: the randomness of privation and plenitude, how civilizations apply justice and create margins that progressively diverge from where the first lines got drawn—otherwise, a human butterfly effect spanning millennia.

     “Ripped from this womb, and you’re standing in a pasture with nothing but greenery as far as the eye can see,” said Corky. “That womb: you find yourself at the base of a mountain staring at jagged rocks no fool would dare climb.”

     “Maybe our lives are meant to mimic the earth that spawned us,” Andy theorized. “Nature smiles upon some places and unleashes Her fury on others. But I hate to sound like a crank, whining that only the undeserving prevail while the rest do all the sweating and dying.”

     “There’s truth to your words, but it won’t do a scrap of good getting all worked up over matters no amount of protesting or righteousness can change. I never dreamed of riches. Its only virtue, if you can call it a virtue, is that it gives a fella the wherewithal to tell the world to go to hell, and I don’t see much virtue in that. What a man truly needs is something to do: to go off into the world and then close his eyes come night, knowing he helped it turn.” Corky paused. A pensive look came over him. “When I was a lad, my mama told me angels walked the earth. I went years without giving her words a thought. And then I saw you.” Andy offered Corky a sheepish grin. Then Corky said, “I know George did it out of love. He didn’t want that sonofabitchin Curly and the others to get their hands on Lennie. It’s just a damn shame the world can box a man into a corner such that the only way to show humanity is to kill.” Corky was sure his last remark triggered Andy to shudder. Be it humanity’s final recourse or Andy’s youthful life offering experiences that engendered a reflex Corky couldn’t fathom. A smile came to Corky’s face. He turned his ear to the faint chugging of a train in the distance.  

     “Used to hop the coal freighter that ran along the Monongahela over in Allegheny County. That was in my youth; Hoover was president. My train-hopping days are long behind.” Corky engaged Andy with fond recollections of days before a crushed leg, and the whiskey he used to deaden the pain robbed him of his spirit. Andy did not mind listening; it warmed him to see a spark in the eyes of an oldster for whom he developed a fondness.

*****  

     Some nights are for celebrating life with peers; others are for listening to an oldster relive his past. There are also nights when walking alone, empirically pondering a solitary life as an existential component, marked the prevailing theme. During these rambles, when applying a macrocosmic perspective, as became the scale, Blue Skies and the place from which Andy fled stood separated by the lash of an eye. Concerning these locales, as they pertained palpably to a constituent named Andy, the proverbial eyelash represented an unnavigable chasm with no chance of narrowing. For the present and foreseeable future, it was the scenario Andy preferred: to keep distant that which stood at a distance. However, despite the freedom and mobility of the present rendering the past akin to an entity as inert as a tree stump from which Andy could distance himself, the stump stubbornly loomed as would a star with him as its subordinate satellite. Thus, a faltering notion settled the past and present as manifestations that ran together like the watercolors of an impressionist painting thoughtlessly left out in the rain.

     Thoughts whirled, one moment tempestuously, the next plaintively, as Andy meandered back to Blue Skies. At the rate he traveled, it would take until the wee hours to land atop a mattress. Hours scrubbing pots alongside Doc and the breadth of spasmodic thrusts proffering the acuity, he was the architect of his destiny and a pinball never permitted to settle was wearing. He yearned to run competitively and hear Karen’s voice arching from the crowd, but life is about tradeoffs and collateral damage, or it became so for Andy upon assigning himself Karen Trumaine’s angel of mercy.

     Aside from living in a halfway house, Andy’s existence ostensibly fell within the parameters of normalcy. Moreover, orphaned and thus adaptable to life running off-script, a halfway house overseen by Margret Cleary was far from the worst proposition. But there was cause for disconcertion: A halfway house is a beach where the world’s lost souls wash up, stay until confident they can navigate society, and then allow an ebb tide to return them to the sea. Andy would remain. A low tide would wash up a fresh batch of the world’s woebegotten. He would miss Joe Duffy, George Peckinpaugh, Corky Grimes, and others who would move on as a new wave of brokenness searches for blue skies.

     Andy skips the nightly conversation he looked forward to on the veranda with Corky Grimes and goes straight to his room. Still clothed, he collapses in bed. He senses the Earth turning as he did when lying in the grass along Sycamore Road. Downward, mimicking a feather dropped from a dizzying height, he spirals into a deep slumber and the depths of subconsciousness—a depth he had voyaged to only once previously. His fluttery descent occurs without qualm or fear; he welcomes the unknown. He opens his eyes and discovers he is standing on the bank of a lake. The scene echoes familiarly; its imagery and resonances are analogous to dreaming a past dream; its ethos is akin to a veil of hope. Burning intensely, inscrutably, is the flame of desire. He casts his eyes out upon the lake. Frolicking in the water is a mermaid, a siren.   

     “Darlene?” he whispers. “Can it be you?” he begs to know of a lost child or angel.

     Delightfully wicked is the laughter of the temptress; she twirls with the playfulness of a child, but her nymph-like eyes lure Andy toward the water.

     “But it’s freezing,” he cries.

     “No, Andy.”

     It is a decisive “no” that echoes. Gone is the water nymph’s playfulness, her laughter. A note of solemnity pervades. “The water is warm and gentle, and the time has come for you to join us.” 

     “Who is us?” he cries.

     There is no reply. But wait! A clamorous invader is afoot; it pierces Andy’s cocoon of transfiguration. “Phil?” He is urging Andy to redeem himself. Andy cannot see his strapping friend but intuits his presence. “She’s waiting for you, Andy; don’t be afraid.”  

     Andy’s feet are rendered still. He does not experience the sensation of being thrust forward but is standing knee-deep in the mysterious lake. With trepidation, he gazes down at his feet, an anomaly, for absent is the expected cold and wetness. Water with the absence of moisture? A lake that provides warmth? These glitches fill him with dread, but the water nymph further entices him; her seductive powers override his fear. Andy plunges into the unwet water and swishes below the surface of a phantom lake to where he suspects Darlene awaits him. Nervousness and excitement mount with each anticipatory swish. He surfaces.

     Where is Darlene, or the siren who beckoned? Gone are the rays of sun that kissed Andy’s face and shoulders on the bank. Alone, he stands in the middle of the lake: the air grows misty; the water, whose clarity was akin to crystal, is murky and cold. Andy shivers from the cold and fright. The universe spirals, or he spirals through it: whatever the machination, it is undeterminable and, like Darlene and the sun, the lake disappears—or, was it Andy who vanished, purged from his whereabouts?  Foreboding besets: Andy allows an eye to peel open—a wary peek—and discovers his feet on the veranda of Blue Skies. He feels a tug on his shirt sleeve, then the soft touch of a tiny hand on his much larger one. He need not turn his gaze downward to see to whom the hand belongs or understand why hope and comfort imbue his soul. The child speaks: “Not here, Andy. There are more miles to our journey. We must move on.”       

     “Why?” he pleads.

     “It’s time, Andy,” the child persists, its voice unsettlingly reticent. “They’re waiting for you.”

     “Who?” His entreaty rings with desperation.

     “They are,” the child further persists. “You must go and make them whole again.”

     “But I don’t understand,” he cries.

     “It is your destiny, Andy. Remember my promise.”

     The wraithlike dwarf disappeared, and so too went Andy’s subconscious—it shattered into countless pieces, as many as there are stars in the galaxy, and rematerialized as sentient acuity, allowing the evocation of every aspect of what manifested as a beautiful and unsettling transfiguration. He went to the window and gazed into the cool darkness of night. When nestled inside his room, the night sky posed nary a threat, but upon him gushed fear over once again surviving like an animal. Should he obey a dream, nights without shelter awaited him. He leaned his elbows on the sill and listened to the faint chugging of the distant train—his nightly visitor. 

     “Who’s waiting for me?” he whispered.

     Where was Darlene? Would Andy wake to another envelope, this time handed over by Margret Cleary instead of Regina of The Snow Shoe? On the way out the door, would he receive a wink from the tinkering old man who doubled as The Snow Shoe’s cook?  

     What to tell Wilbur Schultz? The truth was absurd: A dwarfish ghost sees futures and hastens decisions. “He’ll think me loonier than “The Son of Sam.” Andy must reconcile that dishonesty and fabrication are not analogous, as this was not the time for truth-telling. Moreover, the news would travel and, upon growing legs, settle in certain ears. Andy would have to endure Phil bellowing, “Whudda you, outta your goddamn mind!” and end with the recapitulation, “Whudda you, outta your goddamn mind!” He hadn’t the desire to defend his decision to leave Lock Haven. How could he expect others to understand what he fell short of understanding himself? 

      “Then why go through with it?” Margret Cleary, in a private moment, asked.”

     “I saw what He can do,” Andy told her. “I have to trust.”

     Andy passed through the door of The Bald Eagle. He appeared markedly older, similar to when the wisdom of sages manifests in one’s mien. Wilbur Schultz regarded him curiously as Andy offered a lighthearted “Good morning.” After the breakfast crowd thinned, Andy confronted Wilbur and told him, “I’m sorry to leave so abruptly, but I’m needed elsewhere.”

     “Kiddo, when opportunity knocks, a young fella can’t afford to waver. Good luck.”

     Andy sighed that Wilbur Schultz’s presumption shortened the exchange. He used his lunch break to dash to Forney’s Book Emporium and pick up Travels with Charlie. Later, Andy noticed Harold hadn’t placed his bag in the fridge; he hoped for a final night in the park, but Harold had yet to pilfer enough spirit for a proper celebration. Andy wouldn’t tell Harold and Phil his plans; there would be no farewells or efforts to sway him to stay. Wilbur Schultz made his way to the kitchen. “Doc, I have bad news for you. We’re losing an employee; Andy’s leaving us.”

     A thoughtful look came over Doc. For a second, perhaps two, he considered his kitchen without a boy to whom he had grown accustomed. Nodding to Andy, Doc growled, “Good luck, kid.” Touched by Doc’s outpouring, Wilbur Schultz put his hand on the chef’s shoulder and said, “It’s all right, Doc; we’ll get by. It’ll be like the old days, like when we decapitated lousy assistants with airborne pots. It warms my heart just thinking about it.” Doc responded to Wilbur’s farce with a raised brow. The stout man scurried off. Meanwhile, Andy scratched out a note and slipped it into Harold’s bag.

Harold and Phil,

Today was my last day. I’ll be leaving town first thing tomorrow morning. I’m glad to have met both of you and better for the experience. What can I say other than thanks? Goodbye for now.

                                                                                 Your friend, Andy

P.S.  Phil, try not to spoil too many reputations.

     “We arranged a game of two-hand touch tomorrow at ten,” Harold told Andy.

     “We used to play tackle football,” Phil added. “But to make it fair, since nobody could get me and all my manliness to the ground, we’ve settled on two-hand touch.”

     Paradoxically, Harold intoned, “If I had a nickel for every time he yammered on about why we play touch instead of tackle, I could get him a prostitute.”

     “Hardy-fucking-har,” Phil bellowed.

     “Sounds good,” said Andy. “The touch football part, not the prostitute.”

     “Be at Triangle Park by 9:45,” Harold told him.

     Andy arrived at Blue Skies just in time to see George Peckinpaugh hold a newspaper with one hand, wave the other, and grumble to Joe Duffy concerning Soviet backlash, in which the Soviets described President Carter’s stance on human rights as ‘psychological warfare:’ “I’m telling you, Joe, the whole affair is a goddamn communist plot! If there’s a manifesto on psychological warfare, I guarantee you the Russians wrote it.

     Discretely, Andy settled with Margret Cleary as she sipped her evening tea and wrestled with a crossword. Next, he sidled to the veranda and hoped Corky Grimes would follow.

     Leaning on the rail and gazing into the darkness, Corky and Andy drew the night air into their lungs. “Gotta bit a weight on that mind of yours, I can tell.” Andy’s deportment left little to the imagination; it was as palpable as the ricocheting clatter of countless katydids.

     “Do you believe in dreams?” Corky could tell it was not whimsical curiosity Andy wanted settled.

     “I’ve had plenty of them in six-plus decades,” Corky said. “Can’t claim any’s ever come true.”

     “What I mean to say: do you believe our dreams have meaning and tell us things—about our future, our lives—that, while awake, we don’t see because we’re too busy to notice?”

     “Jeez, Andy.” Corky faltered under the complexity of the question but recovered to add: “I suppose, in the space of a day, our eyes see thousands of images, and our ears pick up at least as many words, most of which we don’t pay much attention too, but somehow it registers in that noodle of ours. Yep, the ol’ noodle takes it in, sorts it, and delivers it to us in a dream. Now, whether or not our dreams warn us about matters we oughta know, I’m guessing only the man upstairs is qualified to answer that one.”

     It may not have been the answer Andy sought, but it was a sensible rumination concerning how the subconscious mind interprets the tangible world.

     Come morning, Andy woke and joined the breakfast scene like any other morning. Only Margret Cleary knew his plans; he didn’t have the heart to tell Corky.

     As everyone pitched in to see that breakfast made it to the table, George Peckinpaugh whacked his newspaper against the edge of said table and crowed, “If we don’t start wising up, by decade’s end, those goddamn Saudis will own everything, including the air we breathe!”

     Andy excused himself before the breakfast extravaganza concluded. Upon his departure, Corky Grimes said, “Andy must be going for his Saturday morning run.”

     On his way out, Andy dropped Travels with Charlie on the coffee table in the sitting room. On the first blank page, he wrote:

     Dear Corky,

I hope you enjoy this book as much as I’ve enjoyed our conversations. For whatever it’s worth, I’ve decided to obey a dream. I might be nuts, but pray for me anyway. Goodbye for now.

       Your friend, Andy

BOOK III

THE FIRST PULSE OF LOVE

Upon his morning trek, Andy walked smack into a train depot where rested the Lycoming Valley Railroad. He hadn’t a clue how long the train sat idle or when it would depart. Moreover, he had no way of finding out save for sidling up to the locomotive engineer—an act of boldness he did not entertain seriously—and asking, “I plan to hop this sonofabitch; around what time might you be leaving?” The absurdity uttered aloud made him chuckle. 

     He lay idle in a patch of grass by the track, his knapsack as a pillow, the sun on his face. Finally, he heard the train’s deafening coughing, choking, and wheezing hydraulics. He got to his feet and located an area to obscure himself. (Even a rookie hopper knew not to piss out of a moving train.)

     The train chugged; it crawled along when, up ahead, Andy spotted the open boxcar he had eyeballed before dozing. The train sped. So did Andy. He sprinted to the open car, adjusted his speed to match the train, leaped, landed with his hands flat atop the platform, snapped his elbows so his arms, despite his precarious position, could support his weight, paused to gather himself, then, with a gymnast’s agility working a pommel horse, swung his legs and catapulted himself inside the boxcar. He rolled to the center, crawled to the far-left corner, and shouted triumphantly, “I did it!” No sooner than he blurted his celebratory words, he discovered, disquietingly, that he was not alone—the car had another occupant. When Andy located a suitable place to water a patch of grass, a hobo—he too had lain and, with equal patience, waited—had claimed the open boxcar.

     How fitting, Andy thought: An orphan and a hobo, hopping trains, sharing cars, going to who knows where to do God knows what in a world where the only certainty is uncertainty. He peeked inside his soul and pondered: was it the “unexpectedness” of the company he found unsettling or the “kind”of company? He dreaded to think the latter was the source of an alleged kerfuffle. Andy also dreaded the alleged concept: once a car is claimed, all others are deemed usurpers, territorial invaders, and even among dispossessed wayfarers, there is etiquette. 

     Andy resists appearing rigid and unnerved and does not allow his gaze to contact the car’s other occupant, whom he assumes has qualified him as a trespasser. Minutes pass, in strained succession, without interaction. Andy sighs that boxcars represent an itinerant’s domain, a free-for-all. Before long, curiosity overpowers fear; he sets his gaze upon the hobo. Well-worn and dingy clothes, which in days long gone by had fit, hang loosely; they symbolize a man whose meals are scarce. Aside from being smudged, his face is aged and worn from the elements; his long hair is matted. Andy places him in his mid-thirties, though his condition renders any supposition a wild guess. His life is hopping trains from town to town, scavenging for meals and objects worthy of turning into gain; he is archetypal of those walking the earth others pretend not to notice, yet are gazed at using the benefit of peripherals. A sobering thought swarms Andy—it holds him, chokes him. He froths with empathy that this hobo, a pathetic creature the world forgot, set out a youth cast adrift, driven from a wreck or, of his own accord, left behind a wreckage and was forced to go penniless and hadn’t the good fortune to meet Wilbur Schultz or Margret Cleary, or, for whatever dark reason, wasn’t counted among the world’s lost children, its true angels. He heard a voice echo, “I warned you we’d meet again, soldier.”

     His eyes swell with benevolence before casting them across the car and crawling to the corner where the other occupant sits crouched. He is unafraid. He kneels beside the hobo and searches his eyes; it is a penetrating gaze he sets upon a woe-begotten soul. The hobo cowers, for he has grown accustomed to being shunned. What can this stranger want? I have nothing to offer, nothing to rob. He raises his head so that his wary eyes meet Andy’s. “I know you,” Andy tells him. The hobo swells with hope that he is remembered despite being a mere shadow of what he once was. After examining Andy’s youthful face, the spark of hope withers and disappears. He dismisses Andy as someone crazed. Andy tells the hobo, “I was told of you when I was a child, that one day we might meet, and I should look out for you; you could be anywhere or anybody.” 

      It is a gray, bitterly cold morning in the old town of Amiens in France. Everyone is off to work or bustling in the marketplace. Meanwhile, in the shadow of the city wall stands a ragged beggar. Alone, this wretchedest of souls shivers in the cold. Folks pass him by; most ignore him. Those who look upon him do so pitilessly or in disgust. He—an unappreciated reminder of a life gone wrong—is utterly despised.

     Suddenly, a band of the Emperor’s soldiers rides through town on horseback. Many watch and admire. As they pass the shadow of the city wall, nodding to cheers from the admiring crowd, a young soldier reins in his horse. It is nothing to attract anyone’s attention, only a beggar with outstretched arms and pleading eyes. Martin watches his fellow soldiers pass the beggar without a glance. Martin hasn’t a penny in his purse but is struck with an idea. He removes his military cloak, draws his sword, and rips it down the middle. Using the tip of his blade, he drapes half on the beggar’s shoulders. Laughter from the other comrades fills Martin’s ears. They dismiss his actions as those belonging to a fool. 

     Jesus in heaven, surrounded by angels and wearing one-half of a cloak, says, “See, here is the cloak Martin gave to me.”

     Flaring with astonishment, the hobo gazes at Andy. Andy reaches out his hand. The hobo takes it. His eyes well up, and he cries, “You’re one of them; I can tell.” Andy crawls back to the corner he claimed earlier; his engaging the hobo sees his purse lightened by half. With his future holding no more certainty than the hobo’s, it is madness to part with half his fortune, but not even the thrill of running and accolades he gained had caused his spirit to soar to such heights.

     The orphan and the hobo sat quietly, each in their corner, occasionally exchanging glances but mostly watching the world go by as the train chugged its way through Lycoming County. When the train reached its destination, the rookie train hopper helped the bedraggled veteran safely to the ground.

     “What’s your name?” Andy asked.

     “Henry T. Yates,” the hobo replied.

     Henry T. Yates tried to sound proud when stating his name, but his eyes welled. “I can’t remember the last time anyone asked for my name,” he cried.

     Years had passed since anyone expressed interest in Henry T. Yates, the man. If not for doors slammed on his efforts to assert himself as a viable person, his only interactions came when accepting alms. Most offerings came from those wanting Henry T. Yates off their conscience. Andy was not like most people. 

     “It was a pleasure to meet you, Henry. I’m Andy Trumaine.”

     “Where’re you headed, young fellow?”

     “Not sure. Wherever life leads me, I guess.”

     “You and me both, and may He watch over us.” As Andy turned toward the road, Henry reached for his arm. Andy stopped. Henry fished through his ragged knapsack. “Do you have one of these?” he asked. “There’s no better companion when days are discouraging and weariness sets in.” Henry extends an arm; in his hand is a King James Bible that he is prepared to offer.

     “But it’s yours,” said Andy.

     “And not only do I have it memorized, but I can also purchase another, thanks to you. ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.’ However near the summer solstice we may be, darkness will fall, my young friend. Darkness will surely fall.”

     Andy did not reveal his experience in the valley of darkness as it pertained to his recent travels, for it may have seemed too meager alongside Henry’s near-countless traverses through gorges of menace. He placed the gift inside his backpack and located his road. 

     Forboding and brokenness can beset even those Henry T. Yates alleged as “One of them.” But Andy knew the world would never be as accessible for Henry T. Yates as it would be for him; thus, in parting with half his purse, he didn’t do what he believed was right but alleged was fair. Traveling his road, he heard the child of his dreams relay to his conscious mind, I’m proud of you, Andy; you did an admirable deed today.

     Many nights have passed since last Andy was forced to accept the wilderness as a domicile. The days were growing warmer. So, too, were the nights. The season aside, despite a supple young man’s body, there was no mistaking the earth’s floor for a bed; the tricks the mind can play have limitations.

     When pondering matters—among them: how long would a divided purse last two peripatetics? —Andy lulled himself to where he lost all sense of time and distance. He couldn’t guess how long he had walked his road when he spotted two boys crouched behind the chrome bumper of a ‘69 deVille. The car sat in a driveway, its front end a few feet from a garage door. When upon the boys and about to offer a greeting, one of them put a finger to his lips. “Shhh.” Next, he urged that Andy fold himself to a crouch. Before submitting to what he alleged was an odd request, Andy whispered, “Am I at gunpoint?”

     “Could be,” the boy whispered. “It’s like the Wild West around here, and tall as you are, you’d be the first one shot.” The possibility that bullets could whiz through the air any second was sufficient in urging Andy to the ground. The boy added, “On the count of three, get inside the car; it’s safer there. Then shut the door, but do it quietly.”

     It didn’t take Andy long to develop misgivings concerning these two characters, particularly the one doing the talking. All three gained their way into the deVille—the two boys claimed the front seat; Andy settled into the back.

     “We made it this far; now let’s get this sonofabitchin’ thing rolling,” the boy behind the wheel intoned. With a firm grip on the wheel, he seemed prepared to give it a yank when Andy said, “Don’t you need an ignition key?”

     “Ordinarily, I’d say you’re right, but today isn’t an ordinary day.” 

     Andy was sure he heard a thud; it was the sound his heart made when it sank inside his chest. He pondered whether it was too late to back out of a bargain he mindlessly entered into, and should he do so, how dangerous a tandem were these two miscreants?

     From a laudable deed to theft on a scale that qualified him as a hoodlum: life can turn instantly when you’re a young, inexperienced traveler. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil… 

     A man, Andy assumed owned the deVille he presently occupied, appeared at the front door. Other than to survey the hilly landscape or check the weather, his presence seemed purposeless. The boy behind the wheel, who had worn the smirk of confidence, revealed signs of panic. He whispered, “It’s old man Wiggins! Sink in your seat!”

     Old man Wiggins, whose only intention was to gauge what remained of the day by the sun, swelled with suspicion. His eyes narrowed. He lurched forward when making what seemed an examination of his car. His consternated old man’s eyes narrowed further when he noticed the deVille’s doors were not closed flushly. After shoving open the door and pointing a bony finger, he hollered, “Tommy Trapper, is that you, you sonofabitch!” Old man Wiggins disappeared. He returned with a rifle that, based on how quickly he reappeared, must have been by the doorway. It prompted Tommy Trapper to yell, “Hole-lee shit!” Turning to his partner and then Andy, he urged, “Best get our asses on outa here! Old man Wiggins is gettin’ loonier than a demented toad; he just might use that goddamn thing this time.”

     “This time?” Andy crowed.

     “Never mind,” cried Tommy Trapper. “Let’s just get on up the road!”

     They fled the scene as Old Man Wiggins hobbled to the end of the driveway. He cocked his rifle, aimed, and, upon firing a round into the air, yelled, “Next time, Tommy, a bullet’s gonna find its way to your ass! That’s no empty threat, boy; it’s a promise! And I pride myself on keepin’ promises!”

     Sprinting with a gunshot reverberating in his ear, Andy recalled words intimated by the child of his dream concerning those awaiting him. God forbid, he thought, it’s these two; a preordained friendship with Tommy Trapper, unless Andy’s mission was to save a reckless youth who would one day cure cancer, seemed unimaginable.  

     Andy looked on with amusement at Tommy Trapper and his partner, for a mere quarter-mile was all that was required for them to double over with labored breathing. “What was that all about?” he asked.

     Through huffs and puffs, Tommy Trapper explained, “Old man Wiggins has gotten too old to tend to certain matters. For example, his old legs find it too much trouble to garage his car. He’s also getting forgetful and doesn’t remember to lock his doors. Once, he left the damn keys dangling in the ignition! That woulda been too easy, like an invitation or taking candy from a babe. In other words, there’re no bragging rights in banging the town floozie. We figured stealing his car would help sharpen his failing memory. I like to think of it as community service. We stole his car last month and took it for a spin. This hilly town is perfect for joyriding. We returned the car, as you can tell, but old man Wiggins had to shell out a few greenbacks to fix our hotwiring job.”

     “No wonder he keeps his rifle by the door,” said Andy.

     “By the way, I’m Tommy Trapper,” the car thief said, then shrugged to concede Andy’s point.

     “So, I’ve heard.” After the quip remark, Andy introduced himself.

     “Yeah, you might say I’m the town smartass,” said Tommy. And this here’s Biff, the village idiot.”

     “Aw, c’mon, Tommy,” Tommy Trapper’s witless sidekick moaned, “I ain’t that dumb. Remember, it was me that said we shoulda taken the car when we saw them keys was danglin’.”

     “No, you ain’t. And yes, you was.” Tommy Trapper’s mimicry and mockery drew a scowl from Biff.

     Tommy Trapper had bad-boy charm and an edge that made Andy a touch uncomfortable; it was an effort for him not to seem wary. “You mentioned it was a hilly town, but not the name.”

     “The name?” Tommy Trapper intoned with incredulity. “You mean to say you missed our welcome sign down the road yonder! Why Andy, you’re standing in The Land of the Five Mountains, otherwise known as Shickshinny.”

     “Shick–shinny?” Andy squeezed out the peculiar word.

     “It’s a real tongue twister, ain’t it?” said Biff.

     “When we were kids, we’d make it a game,” Tommy explained, “wagering anything we had of value that someone couldn’t say Shickshinny ten times as fast as they can without getting tongue-tied. I mean, what the fuck else was there to do in such a place when too young to steal cars and shoot marmots. Anyway, no one ever had to cough up their ante; rarely did anyone make it past five.”

     “Does this tongue-twister of a town have a place where a guy can get a bite to eat? I’ve been on the road all day and starving.”

     “It’s slim pickings, I should warn you,” said Tommy. “But from where we’re standing, the closest place is Dobbs Pizzeria. Be sure Kimberly Dobbs waits on you.”

     Wary of the answer, Andy asked, “Why’s that?”

     “If you can say Shickshinny ten times without twisting your tongue, she’ll leave you twisting.”

     “Come again?” Andy’s expression twisted.

   “You know what I mean,” said Tommy Trapper. “She’ll give your knob a good polishing.”

     “Just point me in the right direction.” Andy, who towered over the fair-haired smartass and his rustic semi-literate companion, made no bones that Tommy Trapper was beginning to fatigue him.   

     “Stay on this road for a half-mile,” Tommy said. “When you come to Union Street, hang a right; you won’t miss it. But don’t forget about Kimberly. And be sure you tell her it was me who sent you.” Andy turned and had gone only a few paces when Tommy Trapper called, “Hey, you said you’ve been on the road all day. Whatcha do, walk over from Williamsport?”

     “Something like that,” Andy called back.

     “You some sorta runner or something? ‘Cause we ran full tilt on an incline, and you weren’t breathing hard.”

     “Used to be,” Andy said. “Nowadays, I’m a wanderer.”   

     Andy could have spoken volumes concerning what he accomplished with his legs in a county where anyone associated with track and field knew his name, but it would have meant more time in the company of Tommy and Biff. He prayed they wouldn’t presume him a lonely peripatetic starving for companionship. “Crazy bastards,” he muttered to himself. “Poor old man Wiggins. Poor Kimberly Dobbs. Poor Shickshinny!”

     The gunshot from old man Wiggins’ rifle still rang in Andy’s ears when, in the distance, he spotted a sign that read Dobbs Pizzeria. He was curious about Kimberly Dobbs; she managed his sympathy without the benefit of a glimpse, though he need not ask for her specifically; she was the only waitress presently on duty. 

     Not only was Kimberly Dobbs petite, but she was also underdeveloped. One might describe her as a rosebud yet to blossom. Her pointed features and pixyish manner she coiffed her hair loaned her an appearance reminiscent of an elf, sprite, or any being small and mythical known to dwell in literary forests; one might expect her to sprout wings and flutter about. Her age was fifteen but looked not a day beyond twelve. Andy knew Tommy Trapper’s claim was absurd. As Kimberly seated Andy, she intoned, “You’re an unfamiliar face. I thought I knew everyone in town.” 

     “I’m from outa town,” Andy unnecessarily clarified. “It’s no accident I’m here; I came by way of a recommendation.”

     “And who among our thoughtful citizenry had the good sense to steer you our way? Our policy is to reward those who tout us, so keep that in mind when asked about a good eatery.” Kimberly delivered her latter remark with a coquettish flair but with no implication an encounter beyond what typically occurs in places of service was desired. As for Andy? His mind was only on the hole in his belly while reflecting on a journey that began hours ago in a different town. The result? Some lessons come the hard way. Our traveler was about to discover, categorically, that once words are spoken—launched from lips to flutter in the ether—they are irretrievable and thus cannot get shoved back to where they should have remained. Foolishly and regrettably, Andy uttered the only two words in English for which Kimberly Dobbs had no tolerance: Tommy Trapper. 

     As he had in old man Wiggins’ deVille, Andy sank in his seat. The sprite’s eyes blazed with fury before unleashing the tirade, “I don’t know where you came from or who you think you are, but let’s get one thing straight, bucko: the only thing we serve around here is food! If you came sniffing around thinking you could get something else, it’s best you hit the road, empty belly and all!”

     Andy was wise not to interrupt the sprite’s wrath. There was no benefit to further agitating someone in the full thrust of an invective; some matters must wane without succor. Reconciling his option, Andy sits quietly and endures Kimberly’s outburst. Before long, an aperture presents. Andy interjects, “Whoa, whoa, j-just a second.” Pleadingly, while extending an arm as one would when warding off an attacker, he said, “I knew Tommy spouted nonsense. I didn’t believe a word he said; I’m just here to order food.” 

     Kimberly Dobbs reached the unenviable pinnacle where anger converges with embarrassment. Her tiny hands flew to her torrid eyes before bolting to the kitchen, leaving a stunned pizzeria to turn its glaring eyes upon our traveler, sinking further in his seat. Andy felt the weight of every pair of eyes in the parlor as he, with all his lankiness, clumsily tried to reduce his size. He could hear everyone wondering what words he used to trigger Kimberly’s outburst. Thus far, The Land of Five Mountains had been unkind to Andy, or Andy to it. Hooking up with hoodlums, provoking an old man into firing a rifle, and sending a girl away in a dither did not have a chapter in the book of good impressions. He glanced at a clock on a wall, then muttered, paradoxically, “It’s only a matter of time before The Land of Five Mountains becomes my land of five screw-ups,” and considered setting Dobbs Pizzeria on fire and public urination to achieve the mark. 

     Kimberly Dobbs returned and uttered with contrived reticence, “I apologize for my outburst. May I take your order?” Andy ordered the jumbo twelve-slicer. Unable to uphold her austerity, Kimberly intoned, “You must be starving to death!”   

     “Been on the road since early this morning.”

     Andy regarded a half-eaten pie when spotting a girl stroll into the parlor wearing a shirt that read Dobbs Pizzeria. Meanwhile, Kimberly reached for her jacket. “Miss Dobbs?” he called warily. “Would you mind sharing what’s left of my pie?” With a guilty shrug, he added, “Call it a peace offering.” 

     “Are you sure you want me at your table?”

     “I like to live dangerously.” Andy’s remark brought a smile to the sprite’s face. “I’m Andy Trumaine. I apologize for bringing up what’s his name.”

     “Don’t be. I should learn to be less sensitive. If anyone should make a peace offering, it’s yours truly.”

     “Let’s both do it.”

     Without the benefit of glasses to raise, they touched their already-bitten slices of pizza to confirm their peacefulness.

     “Wanna hear something funny? Tommy and I were friends. My father never cared for Tommy; he described him as ‘too rough around the edges.’ Tommy talked tough and played rough; he couldn’t help it; it was his way of hiding that he was more sensitive than he wanted others to know. When we were kids, we played tongue-twister games. When you’re from Shickshinny, you don’t have to think too hard about words capable of twisting your tongue.”

     “So I’ve been told,” Andy interjected.  

     “It was an innocent way to pass the time.” Kimberly’s tone soured. “Two summers ago—I’m thirteen—sitting on my porch, ballgame on the radio, ice cream cone in my hand, and Tommy comes by and calls, ‘Hey Kimmy-baby—that was his pet name for me—if I can say Shickshinny ten times without screwing up, how ‘bout you coughin’ up that cone?’ Acting a smartass, I told him, ‘If you can make it to ten, not only can you have my cone, as a bonus, I’ll put my hand where you’ve been dying for me to put it.’ Tommy was sweet on me, but I saw him as a buddy, someone to hike and swim with; I wasn’t ready for romance. Damn, if those won’t end up the most ill-advised words ever launched from my lips.”

     “It doesn’t sound like it should’ve ended up a big deal.”

     “It wouldn’t have in a place like Philly, where things happen faster than you can imagine. But everything’s a big deal in a town the size of Shickshinny. And with a sonofagun like Tommy, born to throw gasoline on fires, my foolish words made me a bigger disgrace than Watergate. And depending on which side of Route 11 you live on, I’m ‘The ice cream slut’ or ‘Pizza floozie.’ It’s a good day when I don’t hear the ingenious slogan, ‘Free blowjobs at Dobbs,’ but I can count those days on one hand. Worse, I must act politely when my ‘ingenious’ peers walk through that door.” Kimberly’s eyes began to well up. “I’m fifteen and yet to be kissed, but according to this crumby town, every boy at Northwest Area High has had a turn in my mouth. A guy can taste every vagina within a country mile and receives pats on the back, but one lousy rumor and a girl is irredeemable. That’s…”

     “Bullshit?” Andy interjected.

     “Thank you,” said Kimberly. “I was trying to be ladylike.”  

     “We won’t stay fifteen forever,” Andy told Kimberly. “Before long, the matters that test us today won’t mean anything tomorrow. But that’s not the best part.”

     “What is the best part?” Kimberly intoned. “If you can see a rosier future, tell me about it; I might even believe you.”  

     “A town the size of Shickshinny can have only so many pretty girls. Someone, sooner than you can imagine, will fall for you and fall hard. When he does, you can remind him how he once treated you and has plenty to prove before he receives the time of day. Before long, you’ll be like Hera, looking down on groveling minions from the peak of Olympus.”  

     Though inapplicable in the present, it was a good thought to hold in reserve. “Would you mind walking me home?” No trace of boldness rang in Kimberly’s entreaty; her words came naturally, as innocently as a child asking another to come out and play. Andy obliged. What firm plans had he that would preclude accommodating Kimberly Dobbs? Those awaiting him on a sketchy horizon could sit tight while he escorted a girl to her front door.

     “Tell me, Mr. Andy Trumaine, since you’re not from Shickshinny, where do you come from?”

     “New Castle. The other end of the state.”

     A twinge of hope surged in Kimberly. She knew how far New Castle was from Shickshinny and assumed Andy was there to stay or had relations he visited frequently. Her hope was short-lived, but she found it wildly adventurous that Andy trekked such a distance. “Usually, when someone goes hiking, it’s for an hour or two; they manage five, ten miles, not darn near the span of a state. You’re extreme.” 

     “It’s less a case of my being extreme and more a case of escaping  family matters…” Andy hesitated. His reason for taking to the road was not a subject he planned to broach with Kimberly. After squeezing out “deteriorating,” Kimberly broke in, “Holy shit, you flew the coop!” She sent her hands to her mouth as one tends to when speaking out of turn.

     “Maybe I should start at the beginning.” Notes of resignation and surrender resonated in Andy’s tenor. Night fell on two troubled teens ambling toward Kimberly’s home. “I grew up in an orphanage—it was no big deal; many kids do. Like many, I never knew my birth parents. Did I wonder about them? No orphan born into the world doesn’t wonder why they can walk, talk, and breathe. When I was four, my father was a hero, my mother a beauty. I conjured all sorts of fantastical reasons why they needed to leave me at Saint Pete’s. You latch onto the fiction until you’re six, seven, or the age you figure out there’s no Santa Claus. How I imagined them to look, and the sound of their voices started to fade. Saint Pete’s was a good place to grow up; I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Then I turned twelve and lived with a family: the Trumaines.”

     With the mention of a surname, Kimberly presumed, “They adopted you.” It was unexpected how the innocuous term adopted soured Andy’s viscera. Not until Kimberly drew what marked a simple conclusion did he perceive himself as a “thing” auctioned off to bidders or part of a bargain: Adopters are those who acquit themselves selflessly and benevolently.

     “They did.” Grimacing, he explained, “We crave what we lack: for an orphan, it’s a family. Like a poor boy dreaming of riches, a family looks like a treasure chest to an orphan. Many things from the outside appear as treasures. It took me a while—just weeks ago—to realize 18 Court Street was not where I belonged.” Solemnly, he told Kimberly, “No one belonged there, especially…” Andy nearly alluded to Karen. Karen Trumaine was not a road he wished to travel with any mortal. Kimberly didn’t press Andy by asking, Especially who? She consolingly said, “I’m sorry things didn’t work out.” Kimberly took hold of Andy’s hand. She suffered a twinge of shame for burdening Andy with problems that, placed beside his, seemed trivial. “Tell me,” she began, with the brightness of curiosity, “why didn’t you go back to the orphanage?” 

     “It would seem a sensible decision. But when I left Saint Pete’s, I experienced the world and its dimensions differently. The scale of things fascinated me; I wanted to see it all and imagined running across the country, swimming a sea, running through foreign lands, swimming another sea, and returning to where I started. But to answer your question: I lived in an orphanage and at 18 Court Street; they’re the only two places I have to compare. Before I committed myself to going backward, I wanted to see what the world had in store. In other words, I’m living proof bravery and stupidity occupy the same domain.”

     Kimberly Dobbs was enraptured by what she alleged was a heroic path to traverse as a youth. Listening to Andy imbued her with confidence she could stand up to the world, or at least Shickshinny. Moreover, she believed it was no accident her path crossed with a stranger from the other end of the state, who stirred her spirit. “What happened that made you want to leave?” she asked.

     Because Andy opened the door, Kimberly assumed permission to question the impetus behind an ill-conceived journey. Since pushing the door closed at 18 Court Street, Andy revealed more to Kimberly than he had to anyone. But where his adoptive family was concerned, he had taken Kimberly to the end of the line.  

     And then the two stood below a porch leading to a door through which Kimberly Dobbs would soon disappear. The scene was tranquil, except for the ricocheting sounds katydids made; the night sky, as often in parts of Pennsylvania folks call “upstate,” was dotted with glittery points. Their time was dwindling; they tried to claw back every second from a thieving night. 

     “I wish I could be like you, Andy. I wish I had the courage to ditch Shickshinny and take off.”

     “Ditch Shickshinny?” The whimsical notion of a whisked-away Kimberly Dobbs as a traveling companion delighted Andy, but such fanciful notions only deserve a fleeting thought. With levity, he added, “If I tried to say ditch Shickshinny ten times as fast as I could, my tongue would lock up, and I’d never talk again.”

     With a burst, Kimberly threw her feathery form against Andy’s chest. Buried in an embrace, she stood, a bantam sprite who offered the joy of purpose to the arms of a wanderer. Feather-light and warm, she would remain, and our traveler was inclined to accommodate her for hours, if not all night, or for as long as it would take never to forget the feeling. 

     “I feel like I’ve known you forever,” said Kimberly.

     It’s not too fanciful a notion for those thrust into a random world to cross paths and sense they have known one another longer than a fraction of a day. Receptive souls pondering improbabilities under the stars can unbound sensibilities to new heights, or so Andy and Kimberly were discovering. 

     “But where will you go?” Kimberly begs to know.

      “East,” Andy tells her. He avoids alluding to dreams, angels, and ghostlike dwarves. “A force I can’t see keeps pulling me in that direction.”

     Reluctantly, they surrender their embrace. It is time for goodbye. For the first time, intimacy feels strained. With no possibility of a second kiss—such a gift does not linger in a time called the foreseeable future—why share a first? Kimberly doesn’t wish to dwell on the future. If the first kiss is the only one, it will still be a kiss and make Andy unforgettable.

      “Don’t you forget me, Andy Trumaine.”

     “I couldn’t if I tried.” Andy turned onto Highway 11 and said goodbye to The Land of Five Mountains and one little rosebud. 

     Our traveler pondered many matters while walking Highway 11. Why didn’t you go back to the orphanage? Kimberly wanted to know. It marked a prevailing theme before Harold, Phil, Corky, and Kimberly vied for room in Andy’s head. The cavalcade of echoes hastens the disquieting questions: How long would it take to wear down and appear a woe-begotten soul owning the facility to repel those who would be peers were the world a just place? How many weeks, months, or years had come to pass before Henry T. Yates completed the transformation from a man who set out on a journey to an aimless hobo Andy encountered on a train? Not all pilgrimages end with a sunset. Andy reconciles his encounters with Darlene—a lost child of the world or angel—and a tinkering old man who doubled as a cook, not as fortuity but that a force of omnipotence is guiding him, or so he chooses to purport. Or was it a dream of a dwarfish specter reinforced by imprudent confidence, imbuing him with the courage to tread through the valley of darkness? Whatever stirred his vigor and spirit, be it heightened awareness or fortitude, belonged to a soul conscious that the night would not end with the benefit of shelter.

     How many goodbyes must our traveler endure before he finds those awaiting him? Or will it be he who gets discovered by the foretold unknown? Corky Grimes and Kimberly Dobbs: the weightiness of goodbyes increases. Corky is in the sitting room poring over Travels with Charlie. His fretful eyes shift from the page to the clock atop the fireplace mantle. As 10:30 nears, he marks his page, closes his book, and watches the minute hand tick. Time is unforgiving. Come 10:29, he is in silent prayer. The minute passes. Margret Cleary assures Corky, “He has a good head on his shoulders.” Kimberly Dobbs bursts in Andy’s heart as he carries the ache and joy of her with each step journeying Highway 11. Before long, Andy will be a fond memory.

     It is north of midnight: Highway 11 interchanges with Interstate 81. It doesn’t take long for our traveler to discover traffic is denser and swifter on an interstate. The force of the eighteen-wheel rigs and cars whipping by staggered his long-limbed form; he appears to have departed a tavern unmindful of his limitations. On it goes, an infinite parade of bombastic machines rumbling; they cheer him in the rare moments his confidence soars and taunt him when it wanes. When gripped by latter or sinking moments of despair, he allows the folly of pondering how less lonely the road would be with Kimberly at his side. He has walked for hours; the distance traveled would be a crude guess. He imagines Kimberly not beside him but piggybacked along. She would be featherlight; carrying her delicate form would be the sweetest of labors.    

     Sequentially, cars whoosh and whip, their intervals irregular; the rigs—the monsters of the road—rumbling along; the racket they create is deafening. Like the rails, the country’s highways don’t sleep. Our traveler finds freighters passing in the night far more comforting than the roar of eighteen wheels; it prompts him to yell, “Doesn’t anyone sleep around here?” The highway parade’s bombast swallows his voice.   

     He casts out the notion of sleep and where it might occur; he can ill afford fruitless obsessions. Instead, from the early a.m. grumblings of George Peckinpaugh to taking a sword to a cloak on a train, mixing with trouble, and, lastly, wrapping his protective arms around one of God’s delicate creatures, the day plays and repeats, akin to a series of idyllic images. So many encounters in numerous places spanning miles: had it all occurred in one day?

     The earth turns in an unrelenting pursuit of tomorrow or eternity. Andy grows more accustomed to the bright headlights of cars and the violent rumbling of diesel-powered machines; his strides are steadier, adhering to a rhythm of unknown origin; his eyes narrow their scope in an unwavering straight-ahead gaze. The highway parade has lulled him into a stupor; he heads straight for the edge of the earth, unhindered. He ignores the exit for Scranton. Gone are the deafening rumblings of rigs, the whooshing of cars, and the glare of lights accompanying the clamorous parade. They disappeared, but to where? Unwittingly, Andy has veered from Interstate 81 at the other end of the interchange and again walks the narrow shoulder of Highway 11, a far less traveled road at the present hour. As he works to penetrate the darkness, he longs for the light the whooshing cars had provided; even the deafening rumbling of the rigs was more comforting than the silence and the darkness that disconcertingly persists. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. He longs to curl up alongside the road and succumb to exhaustion to avoid looking into an abyss, a sea of darkness, but his legs still have life.  

     He reconciles an effort that has shortened the time before a rising sun sets ablaze the road, making it appear as Sycamore Road had after the dark inimicality of night passed. Onward, he marches toward that long-for intersection where fatigue conquers despair. His legs wobble, his knees buckle; still, he denies the thrust of enervation and jerks when catching himself ambling with drooped lips. He drifts between cognitive thought and dreams—dreams of how he will wake to dazzling sunshine, stretch his arms skyward, and greet a new day. Perhaps he will spot a friendly face to imbue him with a sense that the world is a place of infinite possibilities or learn during his slumber that the universe reshuffled itself, and he has awakened to all things new. His last conscious thought before veering from the road and collapsing in a grove of trees was Kimberly Dobbs nestled in his arms. 

BOOK IV

LET THIS BE MY LAST PILGRIMAGE

As he had for decades, Bill Northrup strolled the nursery grounds a half hour before opening, sipping from a thermos of coffee. He was short, slender, rigid, and tough as barbed wire. He had bristly white hair that jumped from the complexion of one who seldom spent time indoors. Bill Northrup would walk the rows of shrubs: the deciduous, the broadleaf, then the evergreens. Aside from quietude and coffee, he liked the scent of what the earth spawned first thing in the morning. Bill worked his way to the trees: first, the ornamentals, the young shade trees he saved for last. After Bill finished surveying, he would amble to Ray and Laura’s patio and rap on the kitchen door to announce it was time to begin a new day. That was Bill Northrop’s morning ritual… until this morning. Bill made it as far as the ornamentals, whose root balls were tied up in burlap, when greeted with the unexpected. He didn’t hear the clamor of alarm bells but reacted as though he had. His thermos, which had accommodated decades of coffee, fell from his fingertips and landed harmlessly in the dew-soaked wood chips cushioning the path. Then, the sixty-year-old landscape architect broke into a sprint that took him to Ray and Laura’s kitchen door.

     “For cryin’ out loud, Bill,” Ray cried. “You’re out of breath and look like you saw a ghost!”

     Laura poured orange juice into three glasses when Bill, eyes swollen with alarm and through huffs and puffs, cried, “Ray, you better come quick. I’m afraid we’ve got trouble.”

     Ray rose from his chair. Laura set down her pitcher. They listened as Bill Northrop, never an alarmist, flared with urgency. Next, all three dashed off; Ray and Laura ran a stride behind Bill. They arrived at the north end of the nursery, where rows of ornamental trees stood in neat lines. Bill nearly tripped over the thermos he dropped. All three gathered around what sent them afoot. Laura jerked away as Ray and Bill leaned in for a closer look. “Is he alive, Ray?” she cried.

     Ray knelt beside the figure sprawled on the ground and put a hand under his nose. “He’s breathing.” Ray relayed the finding as though it came as a surprise. Following sighs that they need not contend with a corpse, Bill Northrop theorized, “Maybe he was wandering around drunk and passed out. Kids today…” Bill frowned in a fashion typical of one condemning the younger generation. Ray leaned closer and said, “I don’t smell booze on him. If he passed out, it was from something else.”

     “He doesn’t look the type to get mixed up with pills,” said Bill. Amending the notion, he added, “Nowadays, it’s hard to tell; even the clean-cut ones fall off the wagon. But maybe it’s as simple as he ran out of gas miles up the road, was walking to get help, and decided here was as good as any place to put up for the night; it’s soft and off the road…”

     “Could be he smashed up his car and was too afraid to face his folks,” Ray theorized.

     “You’re wrong,” Laura snapped. “If this boy has folks, he wouldn’t have been out late driving. He was on foot.”

     Ray and Bill acknowledged Laura’s theory was likely correct but fell short of explaining how the wretch ended up in a heap and why. Assuming he was on foot, from which direction had he come, and where was he headed? Moreover, who was this unfortunate soul who interjected commotion into what should have passed as another routine morning? 

     Laura said, “Peek in his backpack.”

     “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn? A Bible?” Bill Northrup’s cries of incredulity implied foul play, and the young man sprawled before them was a misaligned theme. He passed Huck Finn to Ray and the Bible to Laura.  

     “We’re not gonna get anything out of him while he’s sleepin’,” said Ray. “Let’s nudge him awake.” He handed Huck Finn to Laura, reached down, took the boy’s shoulders, and gently shook him. “Son, can you hear me? You wanna try and sit up?”

     The unexpected guest didn’t stir. Again, Ray took his shoulders. This time, he shook vigorously. The guest’s eyes opened to a crease. With great effort, he raised his back from the ground.

     “Are you all right, son?” Ray asked.

     The unexpected guest squinted at three unfamiliar figures peering at him. He wore a look of someone revived in a hospital without knowing how they got there.  He wiped his eyes. Again, he squinted at the unfamiliar figures, only to conclude they were no less foreign.

     Ray’s eyes search for Laura. She is transfixed on someone alleged to be an ill-fated itinerant. Ray calls to her. He calls again sharply. Laura has lapsed into a stupor from which she jolts. Turning abruptly from their guest, Huck Finn, and the Bible tucked in her arms, she marches toward the house. 

     “It hits close to home, Bill. If you know what I mean.”

     Bill nods. He understands what Ray has implied.

     “Let’s get this young buck on his feet,” said Ray. He and Bill each take an arm, guide the half-sleeping young man through the nursery to the back patio, and place him on a chaise lounge. He passes out no sooner than his head contacts a cushion.

     “I suppose we oughta let ‘im sleep it off,” said Ray. “No sense yet in getting the police involved; we’ll grill him ourselves later.”

     “He looks like a decent enough kid,” said Bill. “If he is in trouble, let’s hope it’s typical teenage foolishness.”

     The two men went off to begin their Sunday chores. Laura stepped out onto the patio. Pulling a chair alongside the lounger, she gazed at her unexpected guest, not in a stupor but suggestive of one involved in an examination. Sometimes, her expression was augmented with sorrow and, at other times, wonder. Laura Salisbury spent much of the morning watching her guest sleep. She averted her eyes briefly; it was to peek inside the Twain volume. “So, your name is Andy,” she whispered. “And this was a Christmas present from a girl named Karen.” Laura lowered the book so that it was resting on her knee. Next, she turned the hand-inscribed message toward Andy. She read, “Love, Karen.” Closing the book, she said, “Someone loves you.”   

     Ray and Bill spent Sundays rearranging plant material in preparation for Monday deliveries. The morning passed. They decided it was time to check on their unexpected guest. By then, Laura had gone to the nursery’s store; she had her own Sunday task: taking inventory of material used to help what sprouts from the ground reach its full potential.

     Surprisingly, Ray and Bill discovered their unexpected guest erect and ambulatory; he strolled the grounds, experiencing the textures of leaves and scents of blossoms. As Ray and Bill approached their guest from behind, his nose was buried in one of many blooms adorning a flowering shrub. Sensing he was no longer alone, he asked, “Don’t you love the smell of Cayuga viburnum?”

     Ray Salisbury and Bill Northrop exchanged a glance that implied: I wouldn’t have thought a boy that age could tell the difference between a Cayuga viburnum and a pile of leaves, less give a damn.

     “Looks like we got ourselves a ringer. I’m Bill Northrop. The man beside me is Ray Salisbury. He owns all you see.”

     “I’m Andy Trumaine.”

     “Do you typically nap on the roadside, Andy Trumaine?” Ray’s words were quip and lacked an interrogative tenor. 

     “I can explain,” said Andy.

     “Later.” Ray seemed to lose interest in the how and why Andy ended up an unexpected guest. “You know a thing or two about horticulture?”

     “I do. Someone I once knew taught me much about nature.”

     Ray Salisbury put a thoughtful hand to his chin. Bill Northrop could see Ray’s wheels turning. “Maybe you wouldn’t mind giving us a hand, assuming you don’t have plans. Of course, I’d pay you for your time.”

     “I have no plans.”

     “Then that settles it,” said Ray. As they took to task, Bill whispered to Ray, “Cayuga viburnum? When my son was that age, he didn’t know from anything unless it had tits.”

     The strength with which Andy attacked a task of pure physical labor didn’t go unnoticed. When one is endowed with long, powerful legs, one can make matters requiring exertion look effortless. Bill Northrop snatched Ray’s attention and offered a sideways bob of his head toward Andy. “We should remove the help wanted sign and hire him,” he said. “I bet he’ll work like an ox and never complain.”

     While Bill and Ray appreciated the impression made by their unexpected guest, Laura had questions. Laura brought a lunch of four sandwiches and a pitcher of lemonade to the patio, where she expected to find her unexpected guest still resting but instead discovered an empty chaise. It disappointed her that someone she accommodated went sneaking off without a word. After calling Bill and Ray for lunch, she brightened that the fourth sandwich wouldn’t go to waste.

     Ray formally introduced Laura and Andy. Laura pretended learning Andy’s name was news. Laura had difficulty peeling her eyes away from their unexpected guest. The newness of Andy’s presence diverted the men’s attention from her intermittent expressions of sorrow and wonder. Andy, starving from his night’s trek, was too busy savoring each morsel to notice, let alone feel the weight of Laura’s gaze. Had he done so, he would have found Laura’s preoccupation perplexing, if not disturbing.

     After eating their way to a satisfied belly, Ray decided it was time to find out about their unexpected guest beyond his ability to labor like a grown man with no need for a moment’s rest. Andy explained he departed Shickshinny late last evening and walked through the night. “I walked until drained; I have no memory of my body hitting the ground.”

     “So, you’re from Shickshinny?” Ray presumed while failing to fathom a purpose behind a nocturnal hike of such magnitude.

     “No, Sir, I’m from New Castle.”

     “Then I’d say you’re a little lost,” said Ray. “How’d you make your way to Clarks Summit, and what brought you here of all places?”

     First, Andy met Ray’s gaze, then Bill Northrop’s, and eventually Laura’s, whose expression continued to bound between sorrow and wonder. Finally, he returned to Ray. Ignoring the latter part of Ray’s question, he said, “On foot.”

     For the first time since setting eyes on Andy, sprawled and unconscious, Laura Salisbury introduced a new expression. It matched that one worn by Ray and Bill: Incredulity.

     “Come again,” Ray intoned, suspecting he had misheard. “You walked as in putting one foot in front of the other? I’m no topographer, but I’m well aware New Castle isn’t around the corner.”

     “I cheated,” Andy admitted.

     Ray and Bill’s expressions twisted in confusion. It was Bill who asked, drolly, “How do you cheat at hiking?”

     “I hopped the Lycoming Valley,” Andy told him. “It took a forty-mile chunk out of my journey.”

     “Still, it was enough of a trek to walk holes in your shoes,” said Ray. “What happened: did you make a silly wager, and the loser has to walk around the world? Or maybe you knocked up some girl, and her old man’s tracking you across the state?”

     Ray’s words drew a chuckle from his unexpected guest. Then Andy chronicled his west-to-east odyssey, beginning with the morning he ran through the quiet streets of New Castle. His audience sat captive as he told of his encounter with Darlene (He kept the lost child and angel as a shameless aggressor). He took them through the tracts of the Moshannon and what seemed an endless stream of consciousness he experienced lying in the grass alongside Sycamore Road. He spoke fondly of his days in Lock Haven. “I don’t know where I’d be if not for Wilbur Schultz and Margaret Cleary. And I’ll never forget Corky Grimes; we helped each other reason through matters that troubled us.” Ray, Laura, and Bill each searched their soul for an answer to the question: Would I cough up a hundred bucks to a hobo on a train? Andy continued. Ray half listened as he thought: Most do plenty of talking about good deeds, but this young fellow follows through. “I did get into a jam,” Andy admitted, then recounted his time with Tommy Trapper, Biff, and rifle fire ringing in his ear. But he couldn’t frown long; the debacle led him to Kimberly Dobbs. “I can’t get her out of my head.”

     “They have a way, those women,” said Bill Northrup with a warning tone. The audience got quiet, lurched forward, and waited for Andy to finish. “Well,” he said, “I guess that’s everything.”

     “That’s some adventure.” Ray intoned.

     “Let me be the first to shake your hand,” said Bill Northrop. “What you did for that Henry fella… I don’t know many in your position that would have done such a deed.”

     “I knew someone who would have.” Whether or not intended, Laura’s words rang sharply. The moment passed; her eyes grew misty. She looked at no one and stared into the distance. Ray pretended not to notice.

     Andy’s peculiar effect on Laura notwithstanding, she did not find his presence disagreeable. But now came the time for the million-dollar question—the one that Andy expected but hoped would go unasked until his sandwich fully settled in his belly. He figured Ray would pose the question. He figured correctly.

     “What drove you from New Castle?”

     It was an interesting choice of words, Andy thought. Why would Ray assume something “drove” him away? It never occurred to Andy that others might perceive him as a misfit ousted from a community or someone who hadn’t left behind a hometown to fulfill ambition but that something unseemly drove him away—or, worse, he was alleged unseemly. Ray’s tenor may have rung innocuously, but Andy had a keen sense that “drove” was not a misspeak or ill-chosen word but uttered with a purpose.

     “Well…” he began.

     The tenor of indecisiveness, despite its weight, proved buoyant, though it kept afloat ominously, well exposed, and seemingly longer than the second or two it had. Then, as he had for Kimberly Dobbs, Andy spoke of his days at Saint Pete’s and orphanhood, which he asserted as, “No big deal. Not knowing your folks doesn’t make anyone a one-in-a-million.” Concerning orphanhood, Laura thought Andy’s attitude was cavalier but didn’t interpose.  “I lived in an orphanage until twelve before the Trumaines took me in. It was good for a spell, but not every story promises a happy ending. And believe me, I’m no ingrate, but sometimes you can sense when you’ve been in a place too long. Moreover, if you don’t force yourself to grow a set of wings, you could end up stuck forever.”  

     It was a flowery rendition of a truth no one would care to hear. It featured a philosophically sound ending that avoided dampening the perception of an unexpected guest—inauspicious discovery notwithstanding. Ray sensed his guest wasn’t prepared to discuss those at the other end of the state concerning how matters deteriorated—not in a manner proffering meaningful disclosure. The time passed, and the distance traveled was insufficient. Andy had taken his newest acquaintances to the end of the line. For the time being, he was free from the proverbial hook.

     Meanwhile, Laura took her foot and tapped Ray’s shin. They brought their eyes together. A moment of clarity transpired. Ray lurched forward in his chair, as one might when trying to command attention before speaking.

     “Compared to where you’re from and where you’ve been, Clarks Summit must seem nothing more than a hollow at the end of the Northeast extension,” he began. “And I’ll spare you the mystery: it’s not exciting, not for a young man accustomed to commotion. But it’s good, clean country with no shortage of good folks. That, I can vouch for.” Andy intuited where Ray was headed, however unimaginable it seemed. “Our humble town might be just the place where a young man can replant himself and work on getting his bearings. Who knows, he might wanna hang around and make a go of it. Digging holes, planting trees, laying stones, and hauling material can be strenuous work, but, as you can see, it hasn’t done Bill or me any harm. And Missus Salisbury and I, well…”

     “Laura will do fine,” Laura interjected.

     “Laura and I? We have this big old house and all this room… I guess I’m trying to say that a fella can’t live his whole life moving from place to place, hoping to find whatever he thinks he’s looking for. Someone your age needs a foundation. Anyway, that’s how I see it.”

     Ray put an offer on the table. It was clear; he offered to gesso a canvas upon which Andy could paint a new reality. The question was, why? Moreover, what was fast becoming apparent was that Andy was no less a mystery to Ray than Ray was to Andy. But, for an orphan cast adrift, it would be foolish to second-guess what was unfolding. Besides, Ray’s point was indisputable: it made little sense traveling from town to town, hoping a luminous revelation would manifest, revealing to Andy that he had stuck a perfect landing. Thus far, luck has traveled with him. Despite not being a sentient companion, luck proved as palpable as a charm tucked away in a pocket. But sitting in the presence of Ray Salisbury felt far more palpable than imperceptible entities such as luck, which, on its best day, could prove fleeting and, on its worst, a catastrophe. Andy heard of adventurers setting off into the world to seek fortunes. It made for good fiction, but one deprived of resources can ill-afford fictionalized realities, never mind fanciful notions such as obeying dreams.

     Scotty Hasselbeck happened by. He and Bill Northrup finished the moving and rearranging to make room for new material—meanwhile, Ray oriented Andy concerning stock and store. “Bill and I will be out in the field tomorrow.  We’ll be gone most of the day. But you won’t be alone: Scotty and Laura will be here. So will my sister Beth. Beth drops by when she wants to get her hands dirty. Between Scotty and two bossy women, you’ll have more direction than you need.” 

     Not long after supper, Andy quickly fades. The night ambling highways and interstates has caught up with him. He politely excuses himself. Yesterday—when judged by its breadth of events, mimicked a season’s worth of changes—seems ages ago, and, when sinking into a bed drained of mind and body, the perspective he is a ripe old sage with far more road in the past than on the horizon captures him before surrendering to prevailing paradoxes: the ringing in his ear by a round of rifle fire discharged by old man Wiggins, and a heart that pounded for Kimberly Dobbs.  

     Fatigue aside, he wakes numerous times throughout the night. In each instance, there ascends a moment that sees him teeter on a razor-thin edge, separating consciousness and subconsciousness. In these moments, lost is any sense of his whereabouts. Moreover, stitched together like a flickering projector is a peregrination of slumbering along roadsides and in halfway houses. Then arises a question hastening incertitude when consciousness prevails: Did he, long odds notwithstanding, stick a perfect landing? He hears a voice echoing in the ether: We’re with you, soldier.  

*****

     A sharp rap on a window pane of the kitchen door startles Andy.

     “It’s time to go to work,” Ray chirped.

     In walked Bill Northrup, his thermos of coffee emptied upon the completion of his morning stroll. The three set out into the yard. Soon joining them was Scottie Hasselbeck; he bounced onto the grounds in a red Ford Ranger. Scottie was the only one Andy had to look up to: the thirty-five-year-old Nordic ponytailed blond stood six feet five inches tall. Like Andy, Scottie was all knees and elbows, a gangly figure with soft eyes who appeared unsure of himself. Before long, a thunderous rumbling echoed; its reverberation ricocheted, thus making it difficult to tell which direction it came from. The racket gave Andy a start. Only he reacted. He attributed old man Wiggins’ discharge, making him skittish around loud noises. Still, he found it odd no one reacted despite the roar coming nearer, its volume crescendoing. Perhaps they expected it—that it was as familiar to them as a twelve-o’clock whistle. As the roar neared, it grew deafening and caused the ground to tremble. Before long, in grand style, a shiny Harley Davidson, with an engine blaring loud enough to engulf a round of rifle fire, rolled down the gray chip-stone road leading to the nursery. Save for Andy—he couldn’t peel his eyes from the imposing machine and its rider—the occurrence failed to hasten a reaction. The bike rolled to a stop, settling beside Scottie Hasselbeck’s Ranger.

     Bill Northrup rapped on the pane of a kitchen door; Scottie Hasselbeck, in an old pickup, clanked onto the grounds; a sparkling Harley roared good morning. Everyone had their signature method of announcing the arrival of a new day.   

     A tall, shapely figure clad in work boots, blue jeans, and a sleeveless shirt exposing lengthy, well-toned arms dismounted. With flair, the rider ripped the helmet from her head and vigorously shook a mane of wavy blond locks that settled atop her sun-bronzed shoulders. With crystal-blue eyes and a complexion that had no need for cosmetics, Patti Ingram looked the part of an all-American beauty or girl-next-door you removed your eyes from just long enough for her to grow into an eyeful. Clusters of thoughts weighed on Andy’s mind last night, but not a single one could he presently summon. There were first impressions, and then there was the first time Andy Trumaine brought his eyes to rest upon Patti Ingram.

     “Good morning, everybody!” The rider intoned the word “good,” as might a game show announcer emphasizing the value of a prize. She was raring to go.

     “Mornin’, Patti,” the men called in unison, falling far short of matching Patti’s vivacity.

     “Hey there, kiddo,” Patti called to Andy. “Welcome aboard. I’m Patti Ingram. I heard swell things about you.”

     So captivated was Andy by Patti Ingram’s verve and prettiness that the firmness of her handshake failed to register as a surprise. Andy guessed Ray enlightened Patti about the newbie last night. He found it curious that Ray mentioned his sister, Beth, but failed to mention Patti Ingram. A helluva oversight, he thought.

     Before being enlightened, Andy alleged Darlene was a desperate waif bound to suffocate him. In Patti Ingram’s presence, air never tasted so sweet or felt so breathable; she personified a ray of sunlight propelled by an autumn breeze. Patti possessed an aura of owning more vitality than those around her. In her presence, one felt pleasantly surrounded.

     Andy and Scottie Hasselbeck began loading the bed of Ray’s truck with plant material set aside for the day’s project. Bill Northrop loaded a larger truck with several yards of mulch. Andy’s spirits sank when he saw Patti Ingram hop into the passenger seat of Ray’s vehicle. Scottie draped a conciliatory arm over his shoulder and said, “You’ll see her again.”

     As Ray and Patti drove off, Patti cried, “Holy shit, Ray; for a second there, I thought I was seeing…”

     “I know, I know,” Ray broke in. “Laura must have checked on him a half-dozen times last night. She did everything short of inspecting him for birthmarks.”

     “He seems like a sweetheart, assuming he’s not a ghost.”

     “That he is: a sweetheart, not a ghost. But there’s something in his past eating at him. He hinted at a family matter, but something’s stopping him from getting it all out in the open. Either he can’t find the words or is scared of how they’ll land in the ears of those willing to listen.”

     “We sure as hell know a thing or two about family matters. They can be a real sonofabitch.”

     “And how,” Ray intoned. “Maybe it’s an onion you’re better suited to peel.”

     “You might be right.” Patti’s coquettish smirk was her promise that she would give it a whirl when she thought the time was right.

     Back at the nursery grounds, Andy and Scottie Hasselbeck unloaded and hauled trees, shrubs, and flats of flowers while Laura camped out in the store. Laura avoided brawn but was everyone’s go-to girl for chemical and organic solutions: be it getting grass to grow greener, flowers to bloom longer, a program for shrubs to remain at their optimum, a remedy for a diseased plant, or wanting Japanese beetles dead-on-arrival, she knew the methods. “Botanical wizardry” was how Bill Northrup defined Laura’s skill. “It sounds sexier than a green thumb,” Laura conceded.

     Arranging a delivery was an all-day affair, as there was always a pickup to load. Chester Tenpenny needed as many flats of pachysandra as could fit in the bed of his truck; it was the same deal with Troy Billingsly, who wanted his bed loaded with arborvitae. Warren Lynch needed two tons of gray chip stones delivered, if possible, before the end of the day. Mondays were for lifting and hauling.

     Andy was at the north end of the nursery, tagging a group of pink dogwoods someone had called to reserve and thus failed to realize Ray and Patti returned. The roar of Patti’s Harley startled him. He had waited all day to glimpse the all-American beauty. Off she went, rumbling down the road, seemingly without a thought for the newbie.

     “Why so glum?” Ray asked. “I know Mondays can be a sonofagun, but I can’t imagine they worked you that hard?”

     “It’s not that,” said Andy. “It’s just… Aw, never mind.”

     “Our young friend here is smitten with Patti,” Scottie Hasselbeck told Ray. Ray cried, “Him and every fella in Lackawanna County!”

     “That’s a lotta competition, kid,” said Scottie. “Best to let it go for now.”

     The following day, Bill, Ray, and Patti returned earlier than expected from a project and caught Andy unawares, stealing time admiring Patti’s bike. He reddened like one whose fetish got revealed, or worse, was caught rifling through a girl’s underwear drawer for a souvenir. It surprised him when Patti asked, “Wanna go for a spin?” 

     Andy looked at Ray. “Better take it while she’s offering,” Ray told him.

     “Ordinarily, I don’t let anyone ride without a helmet, but just this once, I’ll make an exception. Besides, you look like you’ve got a hard enough head.” Foolishly, Andy put a hand to his head and wondered how Patti could determine its hardness with only the benefit of a glance. “I’ll have him back in a jiffy,” Patti told Ray. “Then I gotta haul ass to school.”

     “School?” Andy intoned, his expression twisted.

     “That’s right,” said Ray. “Patti doesn’t think she can learn landscape architecture and horticulture from an old expert like me, so she’s attending one of those ‘fancy’ colleges.”

     “Quit it, Ray! I’m going to the same damn place you went!”

     Witnessing Patti Ingram flare with anger, however false, was captivating, as was watching her crystal-blue eyes widen and the blood rush to her cheeks, thus transforming gold into violet. Before climbing onto her bike, Andy took heed of her instructions: “Sit with your front pressed to my back and wrap your arms snugly around my midsection.” He also honored, with delight, Patti’s sweat glistening where available: it presented atop her sun-bronzed shoulders and in the hollow of her throat. The proximal juxtaposition of the latter to Patti’s cleavage made avoiding lechery near-impossible. It also unnerved Andy when imagining the arousal that might occur when pressed to Patti’s back. Thankfully, once Patti rolled onto the open road and hit the gas, the condition of his penis no longer marked a concern; the thrill of the ride overwhelmed anything likely to trigger an inopportune erection. When they returned, Patti yelled to Andy above her idling engine, “Maybe this Sunday we’ll go for a real ride. Whudda ya say?” Her girlish enthusiasm echoed with hope. 

     “Sounds great,” he called back before the all-American beauty rode off, leaving behind a cloud of dust and an enamored young man.

     Days passed. Andy settled in nicely with work, his new milieu, and the new people with whom he gained familiarity. Saturday, he ran what he estimated was a square mile, making left turns on State, Winola, Marion, and W. Grove. Clarks Summit’s elevation was higher than what he was accustomed to, but it had a negligible effect on his stamina.

     Ray and Laura were far from familiar with Andy’s habits and grew frantic after waking up and discovering that he was gone. They searched the house, store, and grounds—the latter with the notion that Andy decided to adopt Bill Northrup’s long-standing routine.

     “Shouldn’t we call the police?” Laura cried.

     “He’s not a criminal,” Ray stressed, then thought: How well do I know this young man who calls himself Andy? Dismissing the notion of Andy as a miscreant, he said, “And what are the chances he’s been abducted?” Before long, they heard the sound of footsteps on the gray chip-stone road that led to the nursery. Andy buried his regretful head in his hands when he saw the worry he caused.  

     “You didn’t work up all that sweat sightseeing,” Ray said. “Are you some sorta runner?”

     “I was,” Andy replied.

     “You could be again,” Ray told him.

     Saturday was a continuous buzz right up until Laura wrote the final receipt. It is springtime; a lilting demeanor is present in everyone’s bearing; humans are in tune with nature; hope springs eternal, and this wondrous, maddening, and often unpredictable matter called life unfolds joyfully. Andy is either enveloped in the thick of it or off to the side, a captivated observer. Between the bustling humanity and its collective din, he sees glimpses of Darlene. Perspective or involvement aside, he does not dwell upon what transpired during his last encounter with Karen. Since Ray Salisbury and Bill Northrup peeled his limp body off the ground a week ago, Andy has become immune to the dark; with each passing day, he feels further detached from what prompted a dawn departure after a troubling night. It is weeks in the past. When conflating time and experience, the measure feels like months, if not years. Span aside, he is stirred by both the journey and the present. It is a perfect paradigm: to feel wanted yet unclaimed, to know boundaries without sensing their presence, to draw a breath without a looming thought.  

     Patti showed up bright and early Sunday morning, engine blaring, a helmet for Andy, and a packed lunch. “Hell yeah!” she said to Ray when he asked if she wanted blueberry pancakes before riding off.

     “What’s the game plan?” Ray wanted to know.

     “I thought we’d head on up the Lackawanna Trail.” (A scenic route that runs parallel to I-81 from Clarks Summit, through the Endless Mountains, to Binghamton, New York.)

     “Every mile?”

     “At least as far as Kingsley.”

     Bill Northrup rolled onto the grounds just as Patti and Andy rolled out. “Ray, I’ve been thinking,” Bill began. “Yesterday, Andy was up before sunrise, damn near ran a marathon, did most of the heavy lifting and hauling, and, come the end of the day, looked fresher than a hotel pillow with a mint on it. It’s a waste having him mind the yard with Scottie; he should be out in the field with you and Patti. Think of all he’d learn.”

     “But that would leave only Scottie to mind the yard.”

     “I’ll hang back with Scottie. I’d still have to deliver the bulk material until we get Andy driving. Either that, or you could drive my big cab, and Patti could drive yours.”

     “Are you saying your field days are over?” Ray couldn’t imagine hanging around the yard, no matter how busy, would satisfy the best landscape architect in the county.

     “I am in my sixties—not that the work has gotten too rigorous, mind you. My only concern is for the boy; he’s gonna need challenges before his mind ends up his worst enemy.”

     Speaking of “the boy,” he and Patti, with the Endless Mountains on the horizon, blooming rhododendrons along the roadside, and the sun shadowing them overhead, motored swiftly up the Lackawanna Trail. Their first stop was the Tunkhannock Viaduct or Nicholson Bridge. “Folks around here call her the thirteenth wonder of the world,” said Patti. “Isn’t she a beauty?”

     The bridge spans Tunkhannock Creek in Wyoming County. A deck-arch bridge, it was the largest concrete structure of its kind when it opened on November 6, 1915. “It’s 2,375 feet long and has a height of 240 feet from the creek bed. Built by the Delaware Lackawanna and Western Railroad and designed by Abraham Burton Cohen.” When Patti finished reading the signpost, she had Andy pose by the bridge and then snapped his picture.

     Back in the saddle, they made their way to Kingsley. Off to the side of the road, in an open field, they munched sandwiches and sipped a thermos of lemonade. Andy’s roving eyes scanned the splendor of nature in spring; it was an eyeful. He was grateful for Patti’s willingness to share her Sunday, but his constant gush of gratitude wore to where Patti warned, “If you force me to say ‘you’re welcome’ one more time, I’m gonna mount the bike and leave you here.”

     “I won’t utter another appreciative word,” he promised. “But, just for the record, I could make it back for dinner with time to spare.”

     “All right, hotshot, we’ll discuss your running exploits later; for now, let’s eat.”

     Under a sky as crystal blue as Patti’s eyes, in an open field, surrounded by the season’s hues, the Endless Mountains providing a scenic milieu, it wouldn’t have required an artist’s eye to assess Andy and Patti as well-suited in the scene. But how suited were they to one another? At nineteen, the flame of childhood still burned bright in Patti Ingram. If not launching Andy into the full thrust of manhood, the road moved his needle a few decisive ticks in that direction.

     Thus far, Patti dodged the question: How was it growing up in an orphanage? It wasn’t from lack of interest; she guessed Andy was asked the question a thousand times and was in no hurry to make it a thousand-and-one. Andy had the pithy reply, “It was fine,” resting on his lips. In the rare instances since leaving Saint Pete’s, when he felt the warmth of intimacy—Karen Trumaine, Kimberly Dobbs, and a boy from his hometown, Kirk Schumacher, headed a shortlist—he kept the door ajar, thus the freedom to probe. Had he sensed Patti’s curiosity, Andy would have gift-wrapped an invitation, but the predictable question went unasked. Patti figured one could live in the present with an eye pointed toward a horizon only so long; eventually, the past would surface and do so without her chipping away at what kept it imprisoned.

     Orphanhood aside, Andy captivated Patti. To journey a long distance on foot, sleep out of doors along roadsides, and battle moments when fear and desperation coalesce to send one’s spirit plummeting, leaving one lost at sea, an infinitesimal entity traversing the blackness between stars was one matter. Piggybacking onto all of the above and not having a reservation when handing over half one’s worth to a stranger on a train was another. One might allege it was an act of madness, not goodness.  The ethos of goodness was palpable when Patti searched Andy’s eyes. She chose to believe what her eyes beheld. Still, what drove Andy from his hometown was a curiosity never far from her thoughts.

Andy rose to his feet and reached for Patti’s hand. “Let’s go exploring.” With a sweep of an arm, he gestured to the expanse of wilderness.

“I guess exploring is a specialty of yours, ay fella?” The friendly taunt drew a chortle from Andy.

     “As long as we’re on the subject, or in that domain, I wouldn’t mind a running partner. I haven’t had any since….” Andy nearly let the names Davy Shaw and Panda, boys from his hometown, escape. He shook off the near misspeak and said, “I mean… so long as they could keep up.”

     “Oh yeah, hotshot; I’ll have you know, you’re not the only athlete occupying this meadow.”

     Andy looked off in the distance and pointed. “You see that creek? I’d estimate it’s three hundred yards away.”

     “You’re on!” said Patti.

     They each shook out their limbs and assumed the customary stance of a sprinter. Patti called out, “On your mark, get set…” Upon what she hoped would prove an advantageous moment of hesitation, she hollered, “Go!” It was a race for fifty yards, with Patti running a half-stride behind Andy. Then Andy’s ungainliness unfurled. The transformation was spectacular—a sight beyond the confines of Andy’s hometown few had witnessed. By the hundred-yard mark, it was no longer a race. Patti, continuing what fast became a futile effort, summoned the wind to cry, “Holy shit!” Andy seemed to narrow with each loping stride and knifed through space with precision analogous to the principles of convection and density or energy flowing through ecosystems. He seemed more animal than human or some synthesis of each owning the capacity to heighten swiftness and transform it into a rare form of physical poetry. When he reached the creek, he held out his wrist and glanced at his watch in a manner one might when exaggerating another’s tardiness. “Gee, we’re not breathing too heavily, are we?” he taunted his competitor.

     “All right, hotshot,” Patti managed through huffs and puffs, “you can revel in your margin of victory. You earned it; you whipped my ass fair and square.” Mocking how Andy had segued from exploring to running, she intoned, ‘“As long as we’re on the subject, or in that domain,’ where are they holding the next summer Olympics?”

     “Moscow.”

     “Sonofabitch, we need to get you ready for Moscow! As for a running partner: I recommend you get yourself a dog, one of those sleek jobbies they train to race.”

     The mention of a dog as a companion caused a discernible shift in Andy’s demeanor. Patti assumed Andy as a potential Olympian, both overwhelmed and humbled him. Were that the case, it was not the first time Andy heard his name linked to such loftiness. Kirk Schumacher was the first to connect Andy with Olympic glory, followed by Coach Squirek, who, when allowing himself a peek into the future, relished the opportunity to groom an Olympian.  

     At the creek, they skimmed stones. Patti skimmed them; Andy made flat, smooth, modest earth treasures go kerplunk. “Gimme that stone,” Patti said as Andy was about to squander another treasure. “Stand aside. I’ll show you how it’s done.”

     “I’m all eyes,” Andy taunted.

     “Hey,” Patti chided, “this might not be a vital life skill, but after that ass-whipping, I got some dignity to restore.”

     “You’re telling me?”

     “I see someone acquired the skill of citing the obvious.”

     “We all have our strengths.”

     Patti Ingram was an unpretentious girl who brightened whenever there was an open road upon which to lay rubber, a mountain to gaze at, a trail to explore, or a lake suitable for swimming or skimming stones. She had hiked and camped the Endless Mountains of Northern Pennsylvania, knew every twist and turn of Route 6 from Honesdale to Towanda, and swam every lake along the way. That was Patti Ingram’s childhood, her life. Standing by a creek, skimming stones, Andy allowed himself to dissolve into her adventures.

     “Growing up, I read a lot,” Andy said. “Mostly books about adventure. In an orphanage, you learn to use whatever’s available as a window to the world.”

     “Huck Finn?”

     Andy let loose a chortle. “Yeah, Huck Finn. When I first read it, I didn’t fully understand the novel’s implications; I saw the word Adventures in the title and grabbed it. A year later, I reread it. It was clearer. After leaving the orphanage, I felt like something was missing. Someone was kind enough to buy me my very own copy.”

     “When Ray saw a Twain novel in your backpack, he figured how bad a fella could he be? The Bible didn’t hurt either.”

     “That’s always been my philosophy: if Huck Finn doesn’t win ‘em over, the Bible’s bound to.”

     “I like your sense of humor.” Patti’s flattery was accompanied by what Andy construed as a flirtatious jab of her elbow to his ribs. “Growing up in an orphanage didn’t seem to hurt you; most of my peers grew up having the benefit of both folks, and none turned out as well as you.”

     “At Saint Pete’s, there was an older boy, Maxi. Everyone idolized him, but none more than me. A big part of who I am I attribute to him. Anyway, there were three things I dreamed of but never had the chance to do: Visit a big city, swim in an ocean, and see a ballgame at a major league stadium.”

     Patti made three mental notes, then said, “We better start back before Ray and Laura think I kidnapped you.” Before returning to the bike, Patti grabbed Andy’s arm. “Tell me one thing.”

     An unexpected urgency rang in Patti’s tenor. Andy’s heart sank; he imagined only one question would require such a preface as taking hold of his arm. His relief was palpable when Patti asked, “What went through your mind when you coughed up a hundred bucks on the train?”

     “Ever hear the story of Saint Martin and the Beggar?”

     “I haven’t,” Patti admitted.

     “Let’s walk; I’ll tell you on the way.”

     They were a few paces from Patti’s Harley when it occurred to them that they held hands along the way. Next came an exchange of smiles revealing timidity. Patti was the first to recover. “Were you afraid how God might judge you had you done nothing to help Henry T. Yates?”    

     An appraisal from the Omnipotent never entered Andy’s mind; he did what he thought was morally sound. A friendly debate ensues over whose gesture was more magnanimous: Saint Martin’s or Andy’s. Andy maintains a scantily clad man in the bitter cold is needier than a penniless one on a train in springtime. Patti asserts a hundred bucks trumps half a cloak. “With money, you can buy a whole cloak,” she explains. Andy illustrates that Saint Martin parted with half his cloak, whereas two hundred and twenty bucks rested in his pocket before his deed. “If you want to split hairs over magnanimity,” he tells Patti, “I owe Henry ten bucks.”  

     “Fine, Saint Andrew, I’m issuing an executive order to end this debate. Now climb your magnanimous ass in the saddle.”

     Upon returning to Clarks Summit, Ray told Andy, “Bad news, kid; we don’t need you in the yard anymore. You’re fired.”

     Andy’s reaction was mild confusion. Not Patti’s: her eyes widened and blazed, her nostrils flared. She hollered, “Ray, what in Sam Hill is going on? I borrow him for a few lousy hours for a Sunday excursion, and that quick, you decide he’s expendable! 

     “Easy,” Ray cried. “From here on, Andy’s gonna go out into the field with us.”

     “Why in the hell didn’t you say so in the first place!” Turning to Andy, Patti glowered, “He’s been getting my goat like that ever since I was a young girl.” Andy didn’t care a lick about Sam Hill or gotten goats; his only concern was that he would be working alongside Patti. Noticing Andy brighten, Ray said, “Thank Bill. It was his idea.”

     Tonight marks Andy’s eighth night under the roof of Ray and Laura Salisbury. In the previous seven, he hadn’t a dream worth recalling; neither the nun who emerged from the mist nor the waiflike child had crept into the depths of his subconscious. Still, he tossed and turned over how easily he slid into the lives of a mid-forties couple. He alleged it peculiar how, out of the blue, like a marooned survivor, he washed up on their shore, and his presence required no rearranging; nothing needed to get disturbed for the sake of accommodation; it was as if a void awaited an occupier. It seemed unlikely a borough nestled off the Interstate 81/Route 6 interchange could represent anyone’s destiny, but who was Andy to quibble with how or why fate chooses its alignments? He would stay put as long as Ray and Laura would have him and he could remain in Patti Ingram’s orbit.

     And then came the annual Memorial Day barbecue at the Salisburys. “It isn’t Memorial Day until the lighter fluid hits the charcoal and both hit your nostrils,” Bill Northrop said.  As they often had, Scottie Hasselbeck and Bill Northrup’s son Jesse relived their Vietnam tours. Partway through, Jesse became distracted by the newbie acting as “Patti’s shadow.”  Despite the swiftest to inebriation, Laura’s father, George Wilcox,  and Ray’s uncle, Reverend Laudenschlager, won the horseshoe tournament. Bill Northrup, who received strict orders from Betsy, the reverend’s wife, began watering down the drink. Bill told Reverend Laudenschlager, “I’m more fearful of Betsy than I am the Lord,” to which the reverend sulked, “As am I,” then scoffed at a concoction featuring cranberry juice, ginger ale, with an alcohol content, “That would fail to see a sparrow fly crooked.”

     “Many haven’t done so well with moving on,” Jesse Northrup told Scottie Hasselbeck. “I thank the Lord I’m still in one piece or not a cripple with a tin cup.”

     “For those who fought, the war seems like yesterday. Meanwhile, Nam’s ancient history for the rest of the country.” Scottie’s Nordic features twisted when adding, “In the good ol’ US of A, it’s another day, another headline: Watergate, oil embargos, a gas crisis, and now New York’s got a lunatic running about killing folks on the say-so of a dog. Nam and those who fought have been off the front page, it seems forever, gone and forgotten.”

     I’d laugh at the irony if it were funny,” said Jesse. “Men have been warring for thousands of years, and suddenly, society grew a conscience concerning war and its justifications, and it’s Nam vets paying the price for all time. Incidentally, the newbie at Patti’s elbow; I thought I was seeing a ghost.”

     “His name’s Andy Trumaine,” said Scottie. “A helluva nice kid. And yeah, he can make you think you’re seeing ghosts.”

     “You waited too long to water down the drinks,” Betsy Laudenschlager complained to Bill Northrup. “It looks like I’ll be driving home, and, beast that the reverend is, he’ll be pawing me all the way. Unfortunately, the reverend’s sermons are getting shorter and shorter. Nature is cruel.”

     Andy observes the gathering. Guilt surges. What did he do to deserve such fortune? Does the tinkering oldster who doubles as The Snow Shoe’s cook not see Corky Grimes, Henry T. Yates, and Kimberly Dobbs? Did he not turn his attention to Karen Trumaine until Andy reached an age where he could intercede? Have they not languished long enough as a lost child of the world, bleeding so that others may heal?  So much has transpired over time and distance: new faces, discoveries, and learned perspectives; each has reshaped the aspects of purpose. But what is Andy’s purpose? From orphanhood and beyond, he has shown himself an accommodating bank, crashed into countless times by unrelenting waves, crafting a transfiguration, their wake offering the contrast of Western Andy versus Eastern Andy, the heroic runner versus an existence based on anonymity. The embers of hearth warm him like never before; thus, if the heroic runner of the west must vanish to keep aflame the kindling, he will surrender to the east and anonymity and not live a day in the shadow of regret. 

     The sun dips below the horizon; the day turns dusky. Bill Northrup mixes a final drink for himself and Ray. Embers of charcoal, with lingering delight, permeate the cool night air. Ray asks Laura, Bill, Scottie, Patti, Beth, and Andy to gather around. They huddle as requested. 

     “Thirty years ago, my father opened Salisbury Nursery. For thirty years, those who worked here turned a labor of love into a livelihood.” An anxious look came over the faces of the six huddlers; they were expecting to hear a “but”followed by disappointing news. “My father sold my grandfather’s car dealership to open the nursery and didn’t hesitate to tell anyone willing to listen that it was the best move he ever made.” The nervous laughter of ambiguity lapsed into stunned silence after Ray announced, “It looks like we’re going back into the car business.” 

     Every set of eyes shifted among the huddle; each looked for reassurance, hoping it was a joke one of them was in on. Gee, Bill Northrop thought to himself, I don’t remember Ray mentioning anything about the car business. Because she was studying landscape architecture and horticulture at the local university, Patti felt the rage of betrayal. How dare you encourage a sixteen-year-old to walk in your shoes and jump onto another path! Andy was unclear what to make concerning news that jarred the others; just yesterday, Ray mentioned he was to go out into the field; his mask of confusion was the most apparent. Scottie Hasselbeck, who didn’t have a disagreeable bone in his body but never fancied himself a car salesman, thought: if that’s what I must do to earn ends-meat, so be it. Finally, Bill Northrop broke the silence. “Ray, pardon the interruption, but what in the hell do we, who have only known dirt under our fingernails, know about selling cars?”

     “Selling cars! Who said anything about selling cars?” It occurred to Ray that, unintentionally, he misled everyone. “For crying out loud, selling cars would be the last pathway I’d choose to a dollar. I’d rather dig ditches with one arm tied behind my back.”

     “Goddamnit, Ray!” Patti roared. Addressing the others, she complained, “He’s always doing that! He beats around the bush until you don’t know which end is up, finally makes his point, but not until you’re practically in tears or ready to blow a gasket.”

     “A fella can’t help that his methods are a little sideways.” Returning to the point of the post-barbecue huddle, Ray said, “Some of you heard of Fred Birmingham. For years, he’s had a Chevy dealership in Binghamton. Recently, he purchased a lot in Carbondale, where he’ll peddle Cadillacs. We’re gonna do some landscaping for him. A big job; it’s gonna require teamwork.”

     The paths of Fred Birmingham and Ray’s father, Charles, crossed a year before Charles exited the car business. Fred was a young upstart whose catchy innovations for selling cars would prove successful. “Come to Binghamton and drive away in a Birmingham” was the slogan seen on northern Pennsylvania billboards and heard on local radio stations. It was time for Fred Birmingham to get sold an innovation. Ray convinced Fred, since he was selling America’s finest luxury cars, those shiny, brand-new archetypes of American luxury should sit nestled picturesquely within a well-landscaped oasis instead of a stark lot. Fred Birmingham didn’t need his arm twisted.

     Ray planned to surround the lot with blue carpet juniper, globe arborvitae, Cypress trees, and accent stones, all uniformly set in a bed of black mulch. When peeking through the perimeter, aside from every Cadillac model, one would spot raised beds of fieldstone with varying heights. In those beds would grow a potpourri of groundcovers suitable for draping and complementing coniferous and broadleaf evergreens. Ray preferred a blend of foliage using varying colors and textures when planting in fixed areas, such as raised beds. He placed a three-week minimum as an estimate for the job’s completion. “From the irrigation to the cleanup, the lot will be ready for cars in a month,” he told Fred Birmingham. Along with Patti, Ray would need both Andy and Bill, which meant Beth would have to work the yard daily with Scottie, and if necessary, the yard would have to do without Scottie, leaving Laura to wear two hats.

     Bill Northrop spent the first day hauling the required materials to the site. Ray was glad for Andy; he had never had anyone with Andy’s size, strength, and stamina to plow through a job. Andy was machine-like and gathered strength through the day. Ray also noticed the newbie’s preoccupation with Patti’s attributes and that Patti occasionally would sneak an admiring glance at the newest field worker. “Mmm,” he mused, then considered their youthful and fit physiques and dismissed it as natural.

     Patti’s well-formed shoulders, wet from exertion, glistened under the sun; her crystal-blue eyes blazed more brilliantly when asserting herself; her wavy blond mane, weighted with sweat, clinging to her skin, loaned her an appearance of sultriness maddeningly evocative. The peculiarity of Andy’s features—Patti had grown accustomed to the odd collaboration—when at rest or appearing eager to learn, was delightfully boyish. When exerting himself, the boyish peculiarities transformed and revealed a man upon whom a young woman could rely. Both the boy and the man stirred Patti.   

     Lustful glances aside, which were not as subtle as imagined, Ray couldn’t have been more pleased with how well the job progressed—the hours sailed swiftly, aided by precision and teamwork.

     Andy developed the habit of pausing and rapping on the arch dividing the dining room from the alcove, where Ray and Laura would sit and read at the end of each day. When their heads jerked from their respective material to the direction of those staccato taps, Andy would wish them goodnight, make his way through the parlor, and then climb the stairs. With several nights behind him, the walls of the Salisbury home seem an impregnable barrier, his deportment within them more stable. With stability, there ascends a sense that asserting his physicality within a given space is permissible and that he owes no apology for whatever displacement his arms and legs create; lingering or simply “being” is a right. It is the ethos that buttresses feeling at home and precisely what allows him to pause long enough to examine photographs atop a fireplace mantle. He had noticed the cozy arrangement in the past. And although these still-life treasures of Salisbury history were a source of curiosity, he considered them items not yet of his concern. In other words, when gauging how far he may penetrate the lives of Ray and Laura Salisbury, he reckoned it wise to take small steps.   

     Andy heard footsteps stealing from behind; he knew they belonged to Ray. “That’s my dad,” Ray told him, photograph held securely in both of Andy’s hands. “He’s standing at the nursery’s entrance the first day it opened for business. Might’ve been the proudest day of his life.”

     Andy placed the photograph back on the mantle and pointed to another, a much younger version of Charles, posed with an arm securing a woman.

     “They’re my folks on their honeymoon in Atlantic City. And yeah, you guessed it,” Ray added, as Andy gestured to another photo, “that’s the wedding photo of Laura and me.” 

     Aside from the outdated manner in which she coiffed her chestnut-colored hair, Andy thought Laura was a slightly less mature-looking version of herself in the present. Though a resemblance is detected, Ray is far from the fair-haired youth captured in the photo. Since then, his sandy-blond hair has thinned, he has seen an incursion of gray, and his complexion has darkened and weathered.

     Next, Andy’s eyes came to rest on a photograph of a young man not much older than himself. He recognized the track and field uniform in which the young man was clad. So youthful and vital was this young man, endowed with a long and sinewy physique. Glimmering in his eyes was a promise of the future and its possibilities. Other remarkable features were a prominent chin, which made his face appear narrower and lengthier than it was, and disproportionate ears. One might assert the resemblance between Andy and the boy in the photograph as striking; one could easily mistake one for the other if only afforded the benefit of a glance.

     Andy reached for the photo; he studied it closely. Ray placed a hand on his shoulder. Striving for calmness devoid of solemnity, he said, “That’s our son, Peyton.”

     A quizzical look came over Andy. Why wouldn’t one? He was about to spend his twelfth night in the home of Ray and Laura Salisbury; it shouldn’t have taken that long to learn they share a son. Suddenly, those in whom he has placed faith he perceives as secretive and mysterious; his sense of entitlement, made meager by self-imposed constraints, fades; he feels diminished. Where is Peyton? Andy is holding a high school photograph from 1975; it would place Peyton at Patti’s age. “Is he away at school?” It’s a credible theory to presume. Ray relieves Andy of Peyton’s photograph. He holds it so that viewing it requires a bowed head. Lines of ponderous reflection crease in his face, though missing are signs of regret. Ray lets loose a sigh before returning the photo to the mantle and tells Andy, with a hint of a tremor, “Peyton was killed in a car wreck two years ago on I-81.”

     Beginning at the soles of his feet, Andy experiences a creeping paralysis; its persistence renders still his tongue. Confusion and clarity whirl in his head and collide. The totality of his existence, or at the least its vicissitude, makes terrible sense as he swims for his life in a riptide of irony, mordancy, and fatalism. Finally, the paralysis ebbs; it permits him to whisper, “I’m sorry.” But whether he is sorry for Peyton or being, as he alleges, a meager imitation, he cannot say.     

     Ray’s perspective on Peyton’s death was as follows: Some lost their sons to war, others to an illness, and some were never blessed with the joy of a son to love. “Andy, if someone told me I’d have a son, only to have him ripped from me eighteen years later, and asked, ‘Would I do it again?’ My answer would be, ‘You’re damn right I would.’” Draping an arm around Andy, he added, “Somewhere in this wide world is a man who missed out on something special.” It’s been years since Andy imagined a father, a hero; no longer did he have the desire or capacity to summon how the imagined man looked or hear the sound of his voice. “The morning we found you brought it all back—Payton, the accident—especially with you looking so much like him. But that has nothing to do with why Laura and I are glad you’re here.”

     There is no greater depriver of sleep than a restless mind. As he had the night after his dream at Blue Skies, Andy pulled a chair to the windowsill and cast his eyes at the night sky. The pendulum had swung. So inspiring and bizarre are the boundless forces capable of sorting infinitude and guiding one to a given place at a precise moment. It begged the question: was leaving 18 Court Street, Lock Haven, and opening his arms to allow Kimberly Dobbs to flutter away his choice? Next, his thoughts turned to the ill-fated Peyton Salisbury: how convenient. What if Peyton hadn’t perished in a car wreck? One could spend all their days pondering the impact of one life on the totality of humanity. Albeit fascinating, before long, the strain made him weary. As he succumbed to the subconscious world, he heard the buoyant echo: We’re almost there, soldier.       

     When Andy woke, he felt less like an orphan or stray mercifully taken in and more part of something. What that something was was presently unclear but, over time, would evolve. Meanwhile, there was no talk of expectations or the future; otherwise, cornerstones that broken people learning to walk and breathe again were unprepared to confront.

     When Ray’s alarm sounded, momentary twilight aside, he lay riddled. He felt Laura’s warmth and a keen sense of her presence, but the aroma of food cooking had trailed through the house and reached his nostrils. Rolling over, he said, “That’s some trick; you taught the food to cook itself.”

     He grabbed his robe, descended the stairs, and discovered the maker of breakfast had grown several inches. Andy had spectated the a.m. procedure at Blue Skies so that, if needed, he could rustle up breakfast for a crowd. By the time Ray reached the kitchen, Andy had bacon sizzling, bread toasted, omelets flipped, juice poured, and coffee brewed in a Mr. Coffee automatic drip pot that Ray had confidence could brew first-rate coffee because Joe DiMaggio told him so.

     “We got ourselves a genuine short-order cook,” he hollered up the stairs. “You should see him operate; you’d swear he was an octopus!”

     The Birmingham Cadillac project progressed nicely, though Ray was amused and concerned by what seemingly transpired between Patti and Andy. Since her early childhood, Ray cared for Patti no differently than if she were his own but was concerned that she was out of Andy’s league. But with Andy and Patti being as they were—outliers concerning their respective set—there was no league of which to be in or out. Nevertheless, if whatever was emerging escalated to a genuine involvement and went, as Ray liked to say, “kerflooey,” it could make for a strained workday. But Ray wasn’t the type to meddle; he would handle what was brewing between Patti and Andy like a true man and leave it to Laura.

     By day’s end on Friday, the stonework was laid. After dinner, Andy jumped up and announced, “I’m going to Lanigan’s Fun Park with Patti.” As he dashed to the door, Ray called, “Won’t Patti be picking you up?”

     “Nope. I’m jogging to her place. That way, she’ll have more time to get ready.”

     “How thoughtful,” said Laura, though Andy, in his haste, was already beyond earshot. Ray added, “We oughta enter that boy in a marathon.” Laura chortled at the notion. Before it had the opportunity to become infectious, her demeanor shifted. Consternation and somberness prevailed in her temper. “Do you think it’s wise we sit back and let this…” Laura grasped for a suitable word to describe Patti and Andy together. After stammering, “Thing continue?” came blurting out.”

     After a week’s worth of observing, Ray was on the fence about the matter. No one relishes the role of a spoiler, not when the matter is a nascent relationship: Andy, I know how you feel about Patti, but… Or, Patti, let’s not forget Andy has a past, and he’s likely more fragile than we realize…

     “What happens the morning Patti wakes and gets slapped with the realization that Andy isn’t Peyton?” Laura warned. “Romance is all fun and games when it’s budding, but petals don’t stay pretty forever. I’m only one person with one vote, but I say it’s a lot easier putting down ground rules now than dealing with the fallout later.”

     Ray sighed how one might when another has ignored reality too long. Patti and Peyton were never involved romantically; they behaved as siblings from childhood, displaying little proclivity in becoming lovers. Ray and Laura always hoped Peyton would get his skates on and pursue Patti, that the light alerting him that Patti was the best catch in town would suddenly flick on. Perhaps it would have had fate not snuffed the flame of his life so early. Upon Peyton’s committal, Laura looked to Patti as the woman her son would have chosen once he set dallying high school romances aside and sustainability took precedence over fleeting urges. It was a theory whose ascription was not only eccentric but potentially damaging, for it helped Laura keep at arm’s length the finality of death. Laura perceived Andy’s budding involvement with Patti as an act of antagonism, one threatening the piece of Peyton to which she dearly clung. Laura was neither delusional nor unmindful that her fantasy had a shelf life, but the end is never easy.

     “I don’t think we’re dealing with a case of mistaken identity,” said Ray.   

     Laura flared as one would when prepared to unleash a tirade, then sagged in her chair, looking aged and miserable. “There’s still the issue of their birthdays,” she strained to assert.

     Laura’s words were wilting, devoid of conviction, a cobbled-together utterance of one who recognized defeat was imminent but clung to a final and desperate attempt to rescue the unsalvageable. 

     “They’re the ones who’ll have to cross that bridge, assuming they get there,” said Ray. “Anyway, it’s sure been a joy watching young love blossom.”

     Ray’s last words pelted Laura deep within.  “You should see how they look at each other,” he continued. Next, Ray’s eyes found Laura’s; they held one another’s gaze through an unmoving silence. Ray broke the spell. “Peyton died. It wasn’t right that we died with him.”   

     Her eyes closed, Laura nodded, tacitly acknowledging a painful truth. The depth of her sorrow revealed itself in a single teardrop trailing down her cheek. Ray rushed to her side as though catching it was imperative before it rolled further. He pressed his lips to Laura’s moist cheek.

     The union of Ray and Laura Salisbury was hardly loveless: Kindness and warmth marked its tenets, but the flame that once burned brightly went unattended until reduced to smoldering embers. They cannot bear to be apart but haven’t acted as lovers since Peyton’s death. To no longer rejoice in the expressions of physical love wasn’t arrived at by way of a decree or plan; it was a mutual understanding—a contract devoid of language owning the rubric that espoused the sentiment: Since the fruit of our lovemaking no longer walks the earth to enjoy the life he was entitled to, penance is owed.

     Laura’s eyes remained closed. She waited decorously to feel Ray’s mouth on her. She understood his reasoning as truth: To die on the vine, an unharvested tragedy of viability, served no purpose. Moreover, rescinding their unspoken contract shouldn’t be judged a failure or a dishonoring of the dead.  

     “Tending to Peyton’s memory the way we have hasn’t made him any more alive or less dead,” Ray softly uttered. “But there’s still us, our work, and a young man God placed in our path. That’s far from nothing.” He took Laura by the hand and led her to the stairs.  

     Lanigan’s Fun Park featured bumper boats, go-karts, a miniature golf course, arcades, and stands that sold pizza, hot dogs, popcorn, funnel cake, candy apples, and snow cones. There are activities many outgrow and don’t return to until they have children of their own, but not everyone is eager to part with childhood. Outgrowing fun was not a concept Patti Ingram could abide. “Whether you’re five or fifty-five, isn’t fun still fun?” In recent days, Patti had evolved into a loner, a young woman with a pursuit, a bike, and the road. Now, there is Andy.

      “Let’s have another go on those bumper boats,” she cried. “This time, I’ll give you a real soaking!” Next, she cried, “I’ll race you again on the go-karts!”

     There seemed no end to the vivacity that beamed in Patti Ingram’s crystal-blue eyes. Her world was one into which Andy, without care, could plunge and dissolve. A boyishly rugged all-American beauty was how one might describe Patti. For Andy, she embodied the scent of summer evenings carried to his nostrils by a warm gust, the splash of sunshine bringing the promise of a second chance after an August thunderstorm, the light at the shoreline spotted from a dark and lonely sea.

     Before tonight, Andy’s hands hadn’t an opportunity to grip a golf club, and suggesting he was “no natural” at golf’s miniature version would be an understatement. Moreover, Patti’s proficiency (she had no qualms thrashing a novice) made his ineptitude more glaring.

     A young boy with his family followed Patti and Andy on the course. He whispered to Andy, “You’re just trying to let her win, right?” The boy was at an age where he was aware of the magnanimity a young man might offer up to a love interest; however, the urgency in his tenor served as a cringe that Andy was a meager representative of his gender concerning the sport at hand. Were Patti beyond earshot or busy concentrating on a putt, Andy may have whispered to the youngster, “Yes,” followed by a wink, but instead freely admitted, “I’m afraid I am this bad.”

     He fared better in the arcade before they gorged on ice cream cones. It gave Patti joy to see children with faces plastered with cotton candy and melted ice cream. “That’s what being a kid is all about,” she cried before quickly adding, “That was stupid of me.”

     Andy assured her, “I did have a childhood. It may not have been reminiscent of the childhood these kids are enjoying, but it didn’t pass without opportunities to attend an amusement park.

     Andy recalled his trips to Cascade Park for Patti. “I’m glad you told me that,” she said. “I like it when you tell me things.” She dipped her shoulder so that it affectionately brushed Andy’s arm.

     Back at Patti’s front porch, she tacitly revealed the effects a week of hauling fieldstone can levy on a body. Patti had held her own, going stone-for-stone, day after day, with three men. She brought a pitcher of iced tea to the front porch, where she and Andy shared a two-person glider; the porch was made intimate by the span of a Japanese Maple in the middle of the lawn.

     “Here’s to four hole-in-ones,” Andy said, raising his glass.

     “Here’s to….” Patti paused. “Aw, hell; I’m sure you’re not the first to shoot a 130, just the first to do it sober.”

     June brought an abundance of stars to the night sky of Northern Pennsylvania. A twinkling galaxy had shone for Andy along roadsides, on the veranda of Blue Skies, and in a town with a peculiar name, with his arms snuggly enveloping Kimberly Dobbs—nights that offered a plenitude of misgivings. Darkness was a matter of perspective. With Patti, there prevailed no misgivings. Still, Andy struggled to reconcile novel fortunes. In a quiet hour after dark, strolling the nursery grounds, Ray alluded to a hazy time known as the future. Andy had to keep reminding himself that it was he to whom Ray was alluding in that context.

     Just when he thought his fortunes plateaued, Patti chirped, “Okay, Mr. Trumaine, how ‘bout rubbing some stiffness outa these shoulders of mine?”

     Those splendidly toned feminine shoulders, Andy was helpless but to admire—Patti wore sleeveless blouses—required attention. The best invitations are unexpected. Andy ached for the privilege of knowing Patti’s skin. Patti Ingram, dismounting her Harley, tearing off her helmet, and shaking her tumbling mane that danced atop her bare shoulders, was a vision that would remain with Andy Trumaine.

     Patti turned her back. Andy slithered closer, his hands probed for her shoulders. Patti’s head bobbed, swayed, and fell forward in a manner indicative of one surrendering to another of unimpeachable character. Silky was the golden sheath, blanketing the well-toned form of this rugged yet supremely feminine creature. Andy’s fingertips rejoiced, as had his appreciative eyes, and Patti tensed and flexed under their power. As one might, when locked inside a museum after hours, Andy played. Ignoring the rules, he jumped the ropes to a spree of touches and sampling of scents; he gorged upon what others were relegated to experience with mere gazes. And what he got away with! Like a bandit, he anteed but a penny and walked off with a king’s ransom!

     Leaning closer yet, his nostrils filled with the subtle fragrance of lavender. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Closer, he dared, burying his nose in hair lightly scented with orange blossom and honey. Patti was an unwitting evocatour as Andy’s senses whipped and whirled in hyper-inspired reverie.

     “Good?” he was curious to know.

     “Don’t take this the wrong way, Andy, but I have a far fonder appreciation of your hands on my shoulders than on a golf putter.” 

     Earlier, when Andy called on Patti, he expected to make acquaintances: parents, a sibling, etc. He barely planted his feet on the porch when Patti, waiting in the foyer, burst through the door with her typical zeal and chased any lingering thoughts in Andy’s head. Some thoughts returned. With them came a peculiar sense that the house from which Patti had launched herself earlier was desolate, devoid of life. Surely, she mustn’t dwell in this sizeable dwelling alone? Upon bringing himself to ask, Andy felt Patti stiffen and intuited her telling reaction had little to do with a week’s worth of lugging fieldstones.  

     “Did Ray or Laura talk to you about Peyton? Did they tell you what happened?”

     “Days ago, Ray caught me looking at photos on the fireplace mantle. That was the first I learned of Peyton. And yeah,” Andy added, with a note of uncontrived solemnity, “he told me.”

     A pregnant pause followed, sufficient for Patti to gather herself and tell Andy, “Peyton was riding in the back seat. My folks were in the front.”

     Sometimes, words hit with the force of a fist. Other times, they render one numb. Andy’s arms fell limply at his sides. Patti pivoted on the glider. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” She reached for Andy’s hands.

     Curiosity is a perfunctory human trait, one Andy regretted, as what had evolved into the loveliest of evenings would end with Patti recounting her worst day. She fell against the glider and offered a sigh ending with an ironic puff through her nostrils—one implying that reliving that fateful day for a friend was no more burdensome than the countless times she relived it in her mind.

     “It was Saturday, the season finale in Scranton; the region’s best track and field athletes would compete. We tried planning a way to allow everyone to go: Ray, Laura, my folks, Beth, yours truly, and others, but coughing up a Saturday in May when your business is a retail and landscape nursery is impossible. Adding to the dilemma, Laura was rushed to the hospital in the middle of the night; she needed an emergency appendectomy. Ray was beside himself, figuring out an arrangement to get us through the day. He decided Bill and Scottie would work the yard, Beth the store, I would do a little of each, and Ray could be with Laura at the hospital. That left my folks to get Peyton to and from the meet and stand in as the family rooting section. ‘Don’t forget to take pictures, Tom.’ Those were Ray’s last words to my dad. He called from the hospital; I could hear his voice over the phone.  

     “The day was as perfect as the Sunday we went riding. Then, out of nowhere, comes a storm. Looking one way, it was dark as night; the other, the sun was never brighter, and how it reflected off the rain made your eyes sting. I watched Bill and Scottie running from the yard; it looked like they were running through clusters of tiny glass shards, and when I looked the other way, I couldn’t even see as far as the road. An eighteen-wheeler merged too soon. Their car jumped the guardrail. One account had them killed instantly; another had them dead no sooner than help arrived. Before long, the rain ended, and the skies cleared. It stormed just long enough to whisk three people out of the world. Ray returned from the hospital late afternoon when two state troopers came by. What business could they have had with us if they were on duty? Suddenly, everything seemed far away, at the end of a narrow tunnel. I went numb and couldn’t hear but sensed Ray beside me. Those troopers took forever to exit their vehicle. Why should they have taken so long? I watched their slow, plodding walk; it was like in dreams when someone’s chasing you, only it was the reverse. They needn’t have said a word. I knew what had happened; so did Ray. In a way, we’re both orphans, you and me, but at least we have Ray and Laura.”

     Andy tried to quantify the vast psychological gap spanning being born blind and stricken with blindness after enjoying the power of sight for many years. Coping with immeasurable loss must feel different from being disadvantaged. From labor that leaves a body weary to laying rubber to the road at terrific speeds, Patti Ingram lived fast and non-stop. But every day, regardless of how forcefully she pushes back, ends in a house, Patti admitted, “Is unbearably empty.”

     “Funny thing about shock,” Patti continued, “you don’t know you’re in it when you’re in it. Ray and I made for his truck, climbed in, and drove off without a word. It wasn’t until we reached the hospital that it dawned on us why we were there. We sobbed until choking and held on to one another for dear life. When we were all out of tears, we had to decide whether or not it was the right time to march into the hospital and explain to Laura how our lives had changed. It was one of those days you’ll never know how you survived, aside from knowing sorrow alone isn’t enough to kill you. We coulda blamed Peyton for the meet, Laura for needing surgery, my folks, the trucker, the weather… God. We coulda blamed any person or factor, but looking to assign blame won’t get you right in your head and pierces your heart even worse. If there was one thing that Ray, Laura, and I taught one another, trying to assign blame to a tragedy was as senseless as the tragedy itself.  

     “We couldn’t bear the thought of separate funerals and burials. We combined them—the funerals, the burials, the hurt. Afterward, we had a reception in Ray and Laura’s backyard. Bill and Scottie worked setting up tables and chairs, and the food folks were kind enough to bring. The entire graduating class showed up, along with half the town. At least for a day, it made us feel good that my folks and Peyton were so beloved.

     “I spent the nights leading up to the funeral with Ray and Laura. Ray was strong; he cared for Laura and me like we were babes. I went home the night of the funeral, figuring, if not then, when? Bright and early the next morning, Ray and Laura were at my front door; they couldn’t bear the thought of me alone. They said it would be best if I lived with them, that they’d take care of me and do all the things my folks would have done or what they would’ve done for Peyton. But this is where I grew up and where most of my memories live. Besides, knowing that Ray and Laura are a two-minute ride away is a world of comfort.” Squeezing Andy’s hand, she said, “In one way or another, we’re all survivors.”

     Those fallen from grace lumped together at Blue Skies, Henry T. Yates, and Kimberly Dobbs: the world and its chaos spawn survivors, those enduring impossible odds. I warned you we’d meet again, soldier. The forsaken children of the world are its true angels. We walk the Earth unheralded, unloved, or worse. We are humanity’s conscience and must bear all human failings. Often, we must bleed so that others can heal. Because of you, Karen survived. Now, it’s time to move on. There is much work to be done. Had Andy found his work?

     Before long, the spice returned to the crystal blue in Patti’s eyes. Attached to its resurgence was Patti reminding Andy what had his attention before she began recounting that fateful Saturday two years ago. She changed her mind no sooner than she made her shoulders available. Before Andy could register disappointment, Patti swiveled in the seat and whipped her bare legs onto the glider. “Your hands felt heavenly on my shoulders; I would love them on my feet.”

     Insensible to the wickedness flickering in Patti’s mien, Andy was not. The spark in her eyes and impish grin were especially evident when reciting the maxim, “You know what they say: idle hands are the devil’s workshop.”

     “I never cared much for the devil,” Andy maintained.

     Accentuating her arches, Patti suggested, “Then you should do everything possible to antagonize him.”

     No feature that made up the glorious creature sprawled before Andy failed as a treat for the eye, a pleasure to touch, or an inspiration. Patti lolled her head, fluttered her eyes, and permitted herself to relish in the attention paid to her—the sensuous manner Andy’s fingertips traveled her well-formed arches to the tips of her slender toes. She opened her eyes to slits and spied his rapture—how desirously Andy’s eyes traveled the span of her legs to the lovely feet that occupied his lap and provided his hands a blissful labor. Was it too much, too soon? Patti couldn’t confidently say who she aimed to protect: Ray, Laura, Andy, or herself. The experience Andy accrued by way of the road, if not vaulting him into manhood, placed him at its threshold. With only a fleeting thought for Ray, Patti, as Laura’s antagonist, became the prevailing struggle. Abruptly, Patti whipped her feet from Andy’s lap, pointed out the lateness of the hour, and reminded him tomorrow promised a day of rigorous labor. From the porch to the bike to the nursery, they went; thus, a night that carried the bearing of one edging toward a burgeoning romance surrendered to methodical and swift actions. Mindful of her engine at so late an hour, Patti coasted to a stop at the end of the driveway. Andy sidled down from the bike and directed his feeble steps toward the house. Next, Patti silenced the engine altogether; it prompted Andy to stop for a backward glance.

     When Patti picked up his gaze, she told Andy, “Peyton won the 400-meter that day. He died a winner.” Andy nodded but found it peculiar Patti chose a moment already weighted with strain to enlighten him of the result of the final race Peyton Salisbury would ever run. A chill lingered in the ether. Imagined or not, there prevailed a sense that an unnavigable chasm settled between a girl on a bike and a boy whose ungainliness felt more present than ever. The mention of Peyton served as an icy reminder that Andy was an outsider and there were matters he did not understand. Moreover, he was not nearly as connected to Ray and Laura as imagined. Without another word, Patti ignited her engine and rode off.

     After a night’s worth of tossing and turning, typically of how one would after another mishandled their feelings, Andy went for a morning run; it was Saturday. An unmuddled head was too tall a task; no thought proved capable of superseding the abrupt and peculiar manner last night met its conclusion. Peyton won the 400-meter that day. He died a winner. If not for the affecting change in Patti’s demeanor, Andy might’ve interpreted her words simply as an exchange of information. But something obscure and arcane seemed afoot; it obliterated the equity of the evening and reduced Andy to an accessory for which Patti no longer had time. Moreover, aside from Patti’s perplexing deportment, an implication emphasizing aloofness prevailed. What, if anything, had she conveyed? Whatever, it was the root of Andy’s restless bed and why his strides, ordinarily the essence of fluidity, were jerky.   

     Monday morning, Patti would rumble onto the driveway, revving her engine and raring to thrust her vigor into a new day. The hours separating Saturday and Monday would prove overwrought; Andy couldn’t wait until Patti tore off her helmet and shook her disheveled mane to gather from her demeanor if the piece of her he believed he earned as his own was another’s entitlement, even if the other was a ghost. Andy knew no such measure of discipline. Damn the consequences, he incorporated Patti’s lonely domicile into his course.

     He stood on the same porch where, hours ago, he experienced what for him marked an unparalleled thrill. Despite rehearsing, he jittered; trepidation gathered in his belly liberally as he bounced on the balls of his feet. He deployed a hesitant fingertip to a doorbell. Patti answered barefoot, wearing a terrycloth robe, her mane disheveled from a restless night, and her hands gripped a mug of coffee; its vapor rose to her chin. The sunlight flooding the porch made her squint; her skin glowed. Stepping onto the porch, she told Andy, “I’m glad you came by this morning.”  

     “Are you?”

     Frowning how one might when admitting long-delayed fault, Patti replied with a blame-laden, “I am.”

     “I can run the 400-meter like you can’t imagine,” Andy said. “And I’ll let you in on another secret: I was mere seconds off the world record pace the last time I ran the mile. But it won’t make me Peyton.”

     “I never thought you were anyone other than who you are, and that’s what makes it so damn scary.”

     “I don’t understand.” Andy’s chest deflated. Patti took a seat on the glider. She made a gesture that Andy should sit beside her. He unhesitatingly obliged. “I’ve been on my own for two years, and when you’re on your own, you get used to things a certain way.” Patti paused, then winced in disgust. “Forget all that; it was a bunch of bullshit. The truth is, I’m terrified another storm’s coming. The first was a doozie. If another comes, I hope it takes me with it ‘cause I couldn’t bear to lose another person. Incidentally, I planned to come by the nursery today. I didn’t like how last night ended, either. But you had better get going.”

     Before Patti turned to go inside, she surprised Andy by putting her lips to his cheek. Next, she called to him from behind a screen door, “I’ll be around tomorrow for breakfast. We can spend the day together if you like.” Limbering, Andy called back, “Sounds great.” Before Andy took to the road, Patti said, “I’m not a fool, Andy. I know you’re special.”

     Andy muttered to himself, “I better take a shorter route home.” Again, he uttered the word “home” and then repeated it as if it were a new word he learned. It echoed strangely and excitingly. He resumed running, swifter than before, perhaps faster than he ever ran competitively. The incorporeal force responsible for igniting neurotransmission and accelerating the process of cellular respiration that surges through our bodies in moments of joy billowed through Andy like never before: his spirit soared from the sheer pleasure of being alive, and when galloping, what came upon him, in a rush, was the sensation he sprouted wings and could fly. He stood on the back patio, peering into the kitchen through a pane in the door. He spied a woman who carried inside her a child who would one day perish in a car wreck on I-81. The same woman found it in her heart to welcome a young man, who had turned up in the most inauspicious way imaginable, into the bosom of her home. Andy spent more time with Ray than Laura but figured his living with the Salisburys was Laura’s decision, if for no other reason than his presence upset the household’s balance, making it two to one in favor of males. Stepping inside, he stole up from behind Laura, flipping omelets and brewing coffee. He leaned over her shoulder, kissed her cheek, and said, “Thank you.”  

     “I see we’re nice and sweaty,” Laura replied.  

     Patti and Andy’s friendship blossomed after the peculiar hiccup it suffered. They sipped lemonade, watched sunsets on the porch, and took barefoot strolls in open fields as the dusky evenings surrendered to moonglow. There was every expectation romance awaited them on a promising horizon. In the time being, the thrill of discovery overshadowed any sense of urgency that might have otherwise pervaded. Andy began recalling days at Saint Pete’s, those in more recent times, mainly with fondness. Once, he mentioned Karen and his adoptive mother, Emma. Patti didn’t press Andy for more than he was willing to offer. She assumed mentioning Karen and Emma Trumaine would prove a forerunner to full disclosure; thus, Patti would allow the details of Andy’s past to seep out during the natural course of intimate moments.

     They set Sundays aside for adventures; the first was Monmouth Beach. What first struck Andy when nearing a seashore was how different saltwater aspiration makes the air smell. When Patti silenced her engine, there arose a low, continuous roar; Andy couldn’t determine from which direction it reached his ears.

     “Come,” Patti urged, “let’s take a look,” and reached for Andy’s hand.

     One can spend hours preparing a three-year-old what to expect their first time visiting Santa Claus, but there is no telling how they will react until nearing the front of the line or placed in his lap. When Andy stood at the shoreline, Patti leaned her head on his shoulder and tried to remember the wonder she doubtless experienced her first time gazing at the Atlantic. It wasn’t a memory she could summon but, through another’s lens, could easily imagine. Andy’s feet remained fixed in the sand, his gaze unflinching. The world was vaster than he imagined.   

     Winding through Pennsylvania at sunrise, sunset, and the many hours separating the sun’s position, Andy’s eyes stayed fixed upon a horizon that stubbornly kept its distance, but there were mountains, trees, and rambling hills to delineate space. The ocean, by contrast, is a dark and wondrous mystery, and the concept that three-quarters of the Earth was dark and mysterious was frightening.

     Strolling the shoreline, Patti reminisced about the times she had taken the same stroll, holding the hand of a mother and father. She told Andy, “I’m glad I’m here with you; I don’t think I could have returned with anyone else.” She brought his hand to her mouth and kissed it. Andy watched his feet pressing into the moist sand. When juxtaposed to a door closing and an orphan taking to the road, how improbable was Patti Ingram? When stopping again to gaze out upon the vastness of an ocean, he uttered the words, “Ted Trumaine.”

     “Your adoptive father?” It was less a question and more a supposition.

     “Yeah.”

     Confirming what Patti supposed made Andy grimace. She leaned her head against his shoulder so that he might have every confidence in her affection, but where the subject of Ted Trumaine was concerned, she sensed it wasn’t time to probe.

     What about the ocean, a world of dark and mysterious wonder, prompted Andy to mention his adoptive father? Moreover, why did his voice sound foreign when uttering the man’s name? Patti became wary of how far into Andy’s past she should penetrate; that there were matters—even had Andy shown himself willing to broach them—she was unprepared to hear.

     “It’s coming,” he told her. “But not today.” Gesturing at an expansive shoreline, he said, “Let’s not have anything spoil this.”

     They thundered south to Philadelphia and Veterans Stadium the following Sunday to see the Phillies take on Andy’s beloved Pirates. They took their seats, this couple from more than a hundred miles up the northeast extension, amazed that they were two in a crowd of 40,000. Patti had seen minor league games in Wilkes-Barre. Like Andy, her head was on a swivel, taking in the enormity of a major league stadium. She cheered as loudly as any Phillies devotee when Mike Schmidt legged out a triple and cheered for each of Steve Carlton’s twelve strikeouts. In Andy’s youth, his beloved Pirates were kings of the National League’s Eastern Division; the Phillies were perennial cellar-dwellers. Presently, the Bucs were looking up at the Phils but managed to stay within striking distance. Nestled in a crowd of 40,000, someone quietly rooted for the Bucs.

     Andy stared into a hazy multitude; his clock spun right to left until he saw himself, Maxi Brenner, and others gathered around a black-and-white television set at Saint Pete’s. They witnessed their boyhood idol, Roberto Clemente, and the rest of the Pirates form a jubilant cluster after Steve Blass induced a ground ball that would result in the final out of the 1971 World Series; a whole room of orphans erupted with joy. Patti brought Andy back into the present when cheering another of Steve Carlton’s strikeouts. The Phillies were victorious 4—2, moving further ahead of Andy’s beloved Bucs.

     Save for blueberry pancakes on the patio with Ray and Laura, Patti and Andy kept Sundays for themselves. Patti planned a swim and picnic for two in a secluded spot by Lake Nuangola. She discovered this modest nook the summer her folks perished. Whenever four walls proved unbearable—it was not seldom—she would lay rubber to the road, and her destination became a repeated theme. Patti would lie on the bank of the lake, arms and legs stretched, hair spread about the dirt, her gaze skyward. She pondered life, not in relation to rambling hills within a world that rejects the concept of order but the cosmos in its ever-increasing totality. Using a scale to inspire wonder made the affliction of grief to a solitary life seem insignificant. What right had a speck to become so self-absorbed that it sought to spend its days piteously wallowing? Admittedly, it was a skewed rationale to which Patti had subscribed, but it helped reconcile a world whose thematics included lineage-based grief as a shared humanity and an arbitrary nature prone to thoughtless devastation.      

     After filling their bellies, Patti and Andy thundered to Patti’s place to gather their day’s provisions. The front door swung open and then closed. The wind? Next, they heard footsteps in the living room. Andy guessed Patti left something on the patio, and Ray was kind enough to drive it over. A voice called out, “You home?”  It was jarring to Andy; the voice didn’t belong to Ray. It seemed especially jarring to Patti; her crystal-blue eyes widened, her nostrils flared. Often, Andy watched Patti froth with enthusiasm but seldom saw her swell with agitation. It wasn’t akin to how she reacted when Ray “got her goat.” It was far more moody and tempestuous. She nearly knocked Andy over with how forcefully she stormed toward the parlor. After untangling his legs, Andy followed. Patti stopped at the archway dividing the dining room and parlor, struck a hostile pose, and glowered. Andy stood behind her, struggling to imagine the transgression this person committed to engender such inhospitality.

     “Arencha gonna say hello? Or offer me a seat? I hear it’s the custom.”

     “Whatcha doin’ here, Jimmy? And no, I’m not sayin’ hello. And yeah, it’s the polite thing to do—to offer a seat to an invitee, not a goddamn intruder.”

     “Intruder? Is that any way to greet a friend?”

     “A friend?  You must be gettin’ senile, Jimmy. Or the drugs ate your brain.”

     “You sure know how to hurt a guy’s feelings. You’ve grown some fangs and claws since last I saw you. Anyway, I just figured I’d come check up on you.”  Jimmy’s last words were calm, uttered without pomposity and affectation. He hoped to disarm Patti and encourage civility. Meanwhile, he’d yet to acknowledge Andy’s presence.

     “I’m doing A-okay,” Pattie intoned. “I don’t need anyone checking on me; I got it covered.” Patti gestured to Andy.”

     Jimmy pointed a disdainful finger at Andy without honoring him with a glance. “Him?” Sneering, he said, “Likin’ ‘em young these days.”

     Jimmy kept his eyes fixed on Patti. As Patti was about to fire a response, Andy raised a hand and said, “I can take it from here,” and introduced himself in a manner that made it clear that Jimmy’s supercilious demonstration of disrespect was futile.

     Jimmy was handsome but with rough edges—his tousle of tawny hair was fashioned by the wind, and his fulgent eyes could captivate and threaten. He accepted Andy’s hand. With his eyes pinned to Patti, he intoned, “Are you kidding me? I thought they canceled Howdy Doody years ago.” Andy’s reaction was to inform Jimmy, “Usually it’s the custom to reply ‘Pleased to meet you, I’m so-and-so,’ or, in your case, ‘Jimmy.’ But I could be wrong. It’s a wide world with all sorts of customs. In India, they put their palms together. A traditional Inuit greeting involves pressing the nose against the skin and sniffing. Tibetans, if you could believe it, stick their tongues out.” Jimmy was mildly amused but also felt diminished by Andy’s breadth of obscure knowledge. Then, as if struck after momentarily blinded by the obvious, he sneered that Andy mocked him. It hastened Andy to do the unthinkable: he invited Jimmy along for the day. “Patti and I were about to leave for Lake Nuangola. We’re having a Sunday picnic. You’re welcome to come along; we have plenty of food and drinks.”

     Andy need not turn to ensure the blueness of Patti Ingram’s eyes was overwhelmed by a blazing shade of red and that she was spouting steam from an orifice. What the hell is he thinking? Has he lost his goddamn mind! Patti restrained herself from flying across the room and choking Andy. But a notion struck her: Someone of Jimmy’s arrogance would never submit to the role of a proverbial third wheel or hanger-on, scavenging for opportunities to elevate his status.

     The fog in Patti’s head cleared; her rigidness sagged. If Jimmy represented the sword, Andy was the pen. Jimmy, too, sensed a slippery slope and groused disdainfully, “Your young friend here’s a real joker.” Patti remained silent. “Fine,” said Jimmy. “If that’s how you want it, then hell with you; I won’t waste time on an ungrateful girl.” Jimmy made a raucous departure, kicking open the door.

     Sheepishly, Patti tiptoed to the couch and took a seat. “That old saying, ‘Cooler heads prevail,’ I suppose there’s something to it. It never occurred to me I could handle Jimmy better by using politeness. And, here, I thought it was me who had more to teach.”

     Patti clutched Andy’s arm and rested her head against his shoulder. “That, assuming you’re curious, was Jimmy Ringo. Yes, he was an old boyfriend. At one time, I suppose, he may even have been a good guy; everyone does when you first feel a spasm in your heart.

     “We met in our junior year of high school. He told me, ‘If we combine our last names, we could be Ringing.’ I have to admit, it was a good pick-up line. He took me to the junior prom. Then we had a fun summer together. Partway through our senior year, he lost his way and mixed with the wrong crowd. He was drinking every night and showing up to school, looking like he slept in his clothes.  Peyton, who rarely said anything about my boyfriends, told me to ditch Jimmy. ‘Give him a chance,’ I said, ‘Jimmy‘ll come around; there’s good in him.’ Jimmy made a liar out of me; he was coked up one day and drunk the next.  Finally, Peyton told me if I didn’t ditch Jimmy, he’d whip my ass. I finally got it through my thick skull that the crowd Jimmy mixed with had more sway over him than I ever would. Then came the accident: Jimmy used my folks’ deaths as an excuse to come sniffin’ around. He’d insist it was no time for me to be alone and that I was prolonging the inevitable, which, in his deluded mind, meant I would eventually need him, so why fight it? I told him I’d think about it so he’d quit bugging me. But Jimmy can be a real hardheaded sonofabitch. Because I didn’t spell out ‘No,’ he’d come sniffin’ around, liquored-up, coked-up, or both. I told him I couldn’t take the bullshit anymore.

     “One night, months ago, he drove his Grand Prix into a ditch. He only ended up with a few bumps and scrapes, so the police—instead of driving him to the hospital—hauled his ass in for driving intoxicated. Jimmy pretended he couldn’t stand on account of a hurt leg and cried for an ambulance but was half asleep and slurring his words. It was yours truly who received the two o’clock-in-the-morning phone call. Jimmy practically groveled over the phone, crying to me about how he would change and swearing he learned his lesson. Like an idiot, off I ran. At the station, you never saw anyone so grateful and repentant; Jimmy put on a show for the police and me. We made it as far as my bike when he turned into the same arrogant sonofabitch that he worked so hard to become. But enough about Jimmy Ringo; this is supposed to be our day.”

     Patti figured this last go-around with Jimmy Ringo wouldn’t be the last, that getting bested by someone acting cunningly polite would prove a motivating factor for redemption—Jimmy would show Patti he was an alpha male worthy of her affection. Andy tapped Patti on the shoulder. Realizing she was riding angry, she eased up on the throttle. 

     Nestled to the south of Clarks Summit in the Wilkes-Barre area of Luzerne County is a lake that supposedly got its name after an Algonquin maiden, Nuangola, drowned. As they thundered along, Andy noticed a sign that read I-81 and wondered if Patti could ride the road without pondering her folks, Peyton, and the tragic way they perished.

     Patti broke from the main road onto a dirt path. Before long, the trail narrowed, making riding too tricky. She and Andy dismounted and walked the bike. Before long, Andy cried, “You pushed this machine down this path by yourself?”   

     “I’m no future Olympian, but I am an athlete,” Patti reminded Andy.

     They pushed until the path narrowed such that it became impassable for two rolling a bike. A fraction of Lake Nuangola’s bank was visible beyond the thick brush-flanked trail. At the bank, they rolled out a blanket, stretched, and breathed, affording themselves time to know the air and ricocheting sounds of tiny fauna, then gazed out at a lake and its mirror-like reflections made dazzling by the kiss of a midday sun.

     “Is it deep enough for swimming?” Andy asked.

     “It’s over your head in the middle,” Patti told him, no sooner than he began meandering back through the thickly brush-flanked path until he disappeared.

     “Don’t get lost,” Patti called.

     No written guidelines suggest how far away a man is required to stand from a woman when relieving himself out of doors. Although Patti’s tenor was droll, she worried Andy’s sense of decorum would prevent the day from unfolding as she had envisioned.   

     It surprised Andy that Patti had penetrated the lake, the water up to her neck, when he returned. He didn’t realize the order of the day would begin with a swim. Patti waved as one might when attempting to gain someone’s attention while immersed in a crowd.

     “Is it cold?” No sooner than the lake’s temperature marked a concern, something caught Andy’s eye: clothes hurriedly strewn by the water’s edge. Bemused, he gazed at the coquettish mermaid swishing through the lake.

     “No, Andy,” the frolicking mermaid lied. “The water is warm and gentle. Join me. Make it us that’s out here.”

     Patti’s words and movements were seductive; they belied the exuberant first-day-of-summer impulsiveness she often exuded. Moreover, warm, gentle water and a girl urging Andy to hasten to her side echo strangely familiar.

     Blood drained from Andy’s limbs; he gazed through Patti, not at her. He once asked Corkey Grimes if dreams were forebearers to future realities. The lake, the eerie sensation of dreams repeating: he had glimpsed the future. Or had he? He began doubting his perception of reality and distrusted his senses. Who was the idyllic, childlike wraith that allowed images of what had yet to come? Was the dwarfish specter sent to him by Darlene, an angel and lost child, the tinkering oldster who doubled as The Snow Shoe’s cook, or are all three manifestations of the same spiritual entity?  A struggle to apply perspicuity to that which no pragmatic wisdom could abide became an overarching effort; yet, Andy knew, with certainty, the lake, Patti, and his dream were components that made up a transcendental cosmic thrust he was destined to intersect. Finally, the blood returned to his limbs.

     “Hey, you, there on the shore,” Patti called. “Remember me?” Realizing she failed to disrupt Andy’s stupor, Patti sprang to her tiptoes, exposing perky, well-formed breasts. Andy’s face flushed as water trailed from Patti’s shoulders to her breasts and returned to the lake, leaving her skin to glisten luminously in the sun.

     Andy advanced one tentative pace at a time to the water’s edge, where he stood, toes submerged in the mucky soil. Patti called to him. “You won’t be comfortable riding home in wet clothes.” Andy frowned as one would when confronting an indisputable point one hoped would get overlooked.

     Perhaps the most cumbersome scene ever witnessed was Andy Trumaine undressing on the bank of Lake Nuangola. It required effort for Patti not to snicker. “I’m getting lonely out here,” she intoned, hoping to hasten what was proving an ungainly exercise.

     Andy stood in ankle-deep water, clad in underwear, hands dangling in front, mimicking boyish modesty. Again, Patti called to him. “Look at my clothes,” she said. Andy obeyed. Then Patti playfully intoned, “You see what’s on top, don’t you?” Andy spotted the skimpy undergarment, then cast his sheepish gaze at Patti, swishing through the water. Off came his underwear. Alluding to his hands that remained dangling in front, Patti told him, “It’s okay, Andy; I’d be pissed if you didn’t have an erection.”  

     Andy brought his gaze to meet the crystal-blue eyes of one basking in the role of a wickedly charming temptress, a role to which Patti could lend plenty of credibility. Andy permitted his hands to fall at his sides and dove headlong into the lake. The splash from his hurried dive sent rings of water to where Patti stood; they lapped gently at her breasts. At last, Andy and the water nymph stood together, but the water nymph swam away no sooner than Andy shook the moisture from his eyes. Andy followed. Again, the water nymph swam away. Once more, Andy pursued her. Patti swished through the water in orbit of Andy, and he rotated so as not to lose her gaze. Round and round, Patti circled while Andy turned; they mimicked celestial bodies, behaving like children playing a game, though neither knew the rules nor what would happen next. Patti moved closer; she seized Andy’s hands, and together, they turned in the water like music box dancers. Faster, they turned until dizzy, until their hands slipped free, gravity failed, and they went spiraling through the universe and reemerged at the opposite end of infinity. Patti lifted Andy’s hands to her mouth and kissed them. A glimmer of her earlier wickedness returned. She disappeared below the lake’s surface.  

     Patti was aware their initial encounter would mark Andy’s first. Her mouth searched, probed, and upon discovery, she filled with wickedness; it stirred her to imagine Jimmy Ringo watching and her calling to him, “Look at what a good girl I am for Andy,” and it would chase Jimmy away for good.

     Above, the heat surging through Andy’s body reached his neck and pulsed in his head. Before long, there were no more intervals; his body committed the full thrust of its organic resources to one soaring spasm, and Patti’s mouth, her sweet mouth, potentiated the sweetest sensations. She surfaced as unexpectedly as she had dipped below the water. 

     “Sorry, Andy,” she said. “I’m not a real mermaid, though I wish I were.”

     Patti swam away. Regaining his equilibrium, Andy followed. Once again, they were together; Patti didn’t swish or circle; all playfulness ceased. Slithering her arms around Andy, she stood pressed snuggly to his torso. Andy’s heart went all aflutter at the slight upward tilt of Patti’s head and how her eyes idyllically creased. Warmth, surrender, ardor, the verve of passion: how harmoniously these aspects of love merged as the skin of their sinuous forms molded. When their lips parted, Patti pressed tighter to Andy and laid her cheek against his shoulder. Time elapsed, or had it stood still? Then Andy felt Patti quiver. He intuited the source was not a chill, that something baneful or mysterious stirred and threatened to corrupt a moment of bliss.  

     “I’m sorry,” Patti cried.

     “About what?” Andy’s expression twisted.

     “Don’t despise me,” Patti pleaded, “but I can’t go on with this, and God knows I want to.”

     Andy’s gestures were proportionate to what he alleged was a rising tide of incoherence. Why was he transported miles from home, enticed into a lake, only to learn the anticipatory days spent gathering moments—each introducing the next—were for naught, that he and Patti, as one, were unworthy of exploration?    

     “I was broken. As broken as can be,” Patti cried. “It took a while, but I put myself back together, and, in some ways, I’m stronger than before. I don’t wanna break again, and yet, here I am, like a fool, staring down from the edge of a cliff and daring myself to jump.”

     “That’s how you view our relationship, a suicide mission?” As in Andy’s dream, the water grew cold and murky.

     “Of course not,” Patti said. “But you know all there is to know about me, and I know comparatively little about you. Before we take another step forward, I need to feel the ground beneath my feet and know that it’s always gonna be there.”

     Andy stepped back; he needed room to think. Since the morning he closed the door at 18 Court Street, he’s lived in the moment with an eye on the horizon—a condition to which he’s grown accustomed, if not insensible. “I only know today and think about tomorrow, he said. “It’s not an excuse but an explanation.”

     “If I said, ‘I love you,’ would that make me someone worthy of knowing what drove you away from the place you called home? And in case you haven’t been paying attention, I do love you. And I’m fairly sure you love me.”

     “You figured that out, did you?”

     “That’s a lame-ass way of tellin’ a girl you love ‘er.”

     “You’re right. I love you. I’m gonna tell you everything there is to tell. I hope you’re ready for a long story?”

     “We got all day.”

     “It’s gonna take all day.”

Book V

And the Bell Tolled for the World’s Lost Children

With a sparkle of delight, Ada Kearny watched over the collective vigor romping about the rambling acreage of Saint Pete’s. Then, at precisely 12:55, as she had every Saturday for the past thirteen years, she pulled briskly on a well-weathered rope that rang a heavy, well-tarnished cast iron bell. Ada Kearny was Peter Ward Montgomery’s last hire and head matron at Saint Pete’s Orphanage. She was tall, willowy, and moved about with poise and a wistful elegance that made her appear reticent. When Ada Kearny rang the bell, activities—basketball, kickball, dodgeball, hopscotch, jump rope, jacks, and others—ceased, and bands of hungry children stormed upon the cafeteria. After each child had gone through the lines to receive their food and had settled into their seats, Harold Goolsby sprang up and yelled, “Hey, where’s Little Joe! I don’t see Little Joe!”   

     Everyone ceased mincing the contents in their stuffed mouths. Utensils fell and clanked against plates. Then, as all eyes roved the area, Nicky Rincon, whom everyone affectionately called “Raccoon,” sprang from his seat and yelled, “And where’s Andy! He’s not here either!”

     Ada Kearny and matrons Leona Wells and Maria De Soto searched every square inch of the cafeteria, hoping the two had involved themselves in an elaborate game of hide-and-seek and fallen asleep. Ada—ordinarily the personification of composure—moaned, “Oh, dear, we’ve never had children go missing before; Clayton Huey will have my neck!”

     Clayton Huey succeeded Peter Ward Montgomery as director of the orphanage. He was a confirmed bachelor of forty-six years but, over time, developed an eye for the tall, willowy Ada Kearny. Ada was yet to be made aware of less detected Clayton Huey’s burgeoning interest. 

     Ada sent Leona Wells and Maria De Soto off to search other rooms in the building. Meanwhile, Ada kept order in the cafeteria and called the infirmary; she didn’t suspect Andy and Little Joe had taken ill—Ada was on top of every cough and sneeze—but that, with Lucinda Hatch, Nurse Jackson was on duty. The latter was a South Carolinian who arrived at Saint Pete’s through the United States Air Force—an outfit to whom she dedicated twenty years as a flight nurse before retiring as a major. The boys of Saint Pete’s enjoyed hearing Nurse Jackson—or Major Jacks, as they fondly called her—talk in her charming Southern drawl, regaling them with anecdotes drawn from her travels throughout a career in service. It was not uncommon for a boy to fake an illness or injury for time with “Major Jacks” and depart the infirmary with an amusing tale to relay. Unfortunately, Nurse Jackson informed Ada that neither Andy nor Little Joe had visited the infirmary and that she hadn’t seen either boy all day. Leona Wells and Maria De Soto returned to the cafeteria with news no better.

     “We searched every nook and cranny of the building; they’re not here,” Leona cried.

     “It’s not possible a stranger wandered onto the grounds and took them. Right?” Although her question was rhetorical, Ada, now frantic, required reassurance. Noting Leona Wells and Maria DeSoto’s dismay, she cried, “They’re somewhere; we just haven’t looked in the right place!”

     Ada could hear Clayton Huey grumbling: For crying out loud, Ada, donations will dry up in a skinny minute if word gets out, we can’t keep track of children! Ada would not alarm Clayton Huey: not until all fifteen acres of Saint Pete’s Orphanage received a thorough search.

     It was said of Andy and Little Joe: “Those two are inseparable.” Everywhere Andy went, so too went Little Joe: They ate side by side in the cafeteria; Andy’s cot butted against Little Joe’s; as playmates, they were boundlessly loyal. Their only time apart was the hours Andy spent in Miss Desmond’s kindergarten. (Little Joe was a year younger than Andy.) Afterward, Andy recounted all he had learned for Little Joe as they whittled away the afternoon, lost in play.

     More than anything, what stirred Andy was the globe Miss Desmond kept on her desk. It was a prop; she had no illusions a subject so involved as geography was teachable to kindergartners. Nevertheless, the colorful sphere lured Andy. When awarded time, the world, as it was represented atop Miss Desmond’s desk, captured his attention. With the numerous questions he put to Miss Desmond, he learned the names of all seven continents, four oceans, and the position of the poles. When recalling the name of a place, be it New York or San Francisco, he wanted to know its position on the globe precisely, but found it unfathomable, when applying a five-year-old’s perspective, that a black dot could be home to millions. As it appeared atop Miss Desmond’s desk, the world seemed a place a boy could easily navigate and, if so inclined, conquer.  Sometimes, Andy would ask about specific structures, such as the Empire State Building and London Bridge. He asked Miss Desmond to point to Saint Pete’s on the globe. After placing the point of her pencil in northwestern Pennsylvania, from west to east, Andy followed the 41st north parallel and stopped when completing an arc: it put him in Beijing, China. He hadn’t heard of Beijing but nodded like one, making a profound discovery he planned to keep secret. After the boys were ushered to their cots, Andy shared his discovery.

     “Little Joe,” he whispered.

     “What is it, Andy?”

     “You know the world is round, don’t you?” From under his blanket, Andy produced a ball.

     “Of course,” replied Little Joe. “You don’t need to be in kindergarten to know that.”

     “Pretend this ball is the world,” Andy urged. “We’re here.” He pointed to a spot on the ball. “China is there.” Andy pointed to the opposite spot on the ball, then asked excitedly, “Do you know what that means?”

    “Uh-uh, Andy; I don’t know what it means,” Little Joe admitted.

     “It means we can tunnel straight through to China!”

     “Holy moly!” Little Joe’s face gleamed excitedly before positing, “Before we start digging, shouldn’t we learn to say hello in Chinese? I bet Major Jacks would teach us if we asked. She’s been everywhere!”

     “Nah,” said Andy. “If we ask, Major Jacks’ll wanna know why, and she’ll wanna come. When we get to China, we’ll just look around and not talk to anyone.”

     “You’re right, Andy; like always, we should just keep it the two of us.”  

     The mastermind and his sidekick lay dreaming of adventure. Before Little Joe fully succumbed to heavy lids, he whispered to Andy, “We’re just like real brothers, right, Andy?”

     “You bet we are, Little Joe.”

     The following morning, Andy and Little Joe had difficulty keeping a lid on the excitement percolating over their clandestine adventure. After breakfast, they strolled into the kitchen. Andy’s job was to distract Chef Leo while Little Joe pilfered tools suitable for excavating. Andy expressed to Chef Leo what seemed a plausible concern: what was for lunch? Meanwhile, Little Joe snatched two twenty-four-inch heavy-duty steel spoons hanging on the end of the kitchen island and deftly tucked them under a jacket inadequate for concealing them; the handles of both spoons reached his knees. Outside, the two crept past Ada Kearny and meandered left toward the basketball court, where the older, less supervised orphans played. Eclipsed behind the activity of larger bodies, they shadowed a Privet hedge for several yards and disappeared at the point where the landscape sloped. Not far after the ground leveled stood a staggered row of yews. Behind the yews, the adventurers began tunneling. 

     The size of the diggers and what passed for shovels notwithstanding, the duo managed an astounding measure of topographical penetration. Did they genuinely believe they could reach their projected aim: China? They were orphan boys thirsting for the thrill of adventure who managed to fill themselves with the lure of foreign lands, as many do. They were not tunneling to China; they were digging for dreams.  

     Lucinda Hatch left the infirmary with her first aid kit and helped Ada Kearny search for the missing boys. Like everyone else at Saint Pete’s, Lucinda had a soft spot for the undersized boy known to all as Little Joe. “His sweet little voice can melt any heart,” she would say. Lucinda was also particularly fond of Andy, a boy recognized as polite and thoughtful beyond his years.

     The two words that best describe Lucinda Hatch are kind and nurturing. Notwithstanding a shift in Western culture, Lucinda’s ambition was to marry and have children. This modest, if not old-fashioned, ambition Lucinda might have fulfilled if not for a diagnosis of endometriosis; for a spell, the finding left her shattered. Lucinda was nineteen when a rush to the hospital with acute abdominal pain and subsequent diagnosis led to her pondering the arbitrary aspects and cruelties of nature. “You’ll live but won’t bear children,” she was told. For Lucinda, the diagnosis was analogous to the stigmatization of a scarlet letter; she felt compelled to disclose it upon every encounter. “A man would need to be uniquely understanding to accept me,” was the theory she used to punish herself until she decided it best to avoid men altogether. Sullying new beginnings by confessing what she deemed an unpardonable shortcoming was too unbearable. Before long, Lucinda gathered herself and applied her kind and nurturing nature at Saint Margaret’s School of Nursing in her hometown of Pittsburgh. After a year at Allegheny General, she learned through a friend of an opening for a nurse’s position at Saint Pete’s Orphanage.

     From the depths of despair, Lucinda Hatch cursed God and her body—the latter, she judged harshly—but was confident she discovered her calling after a day at Saint Pete’s. At age twenty-four, a nurse, frail of stature and appearing no older than some of the older orphans that had come under her charge, found herself combing the rambling landscape of Saint Pete’s, searching for two reasons that gave her life meaning.

     Lucinda walked the same path Andy and Little Joe had earlier, shadowing the Privet hedge toward where it formed a corner with an Olive hedge. Before the corner, she heard the grunts of exertion behind a staggered line of yews. Stealthily, she peeked behind the evergreen furthest to the left and gaped at what she spied. Lucinda strained to suppress laughter before dashing across the way to fetch Ada Kearny, searching behind bountiful fronds of Forsythia.

     “Ada,” she cried. “Come quickly; you must see this!”  

     “You found them?” Ada beamed with hope.

     “I have.” Lucinda grabbed Ada’s hand and led her to where the boys toiled. Upon arriving, Ada’s reaction was similar to Lucinda’s when espying the captains of industry, who thus far hollowed a depth that placed the rim at Andy’s waist and Little Joe’s chest; its diameter was not an inch less than five feet! Bemused, Ada looked to Lucinda, hoping Saint Pete’s junior nurse could shed light on why the youngsters wandered off to dig. Lucinda dreaded the thought but knew a reprimand was pending. Ada Kearny cleared her throat. The captains of industry dropped their spoons and straightened up. “I don’t suppose we heard the bell for lunch, did we?” she intoned sharply.

     “Honest, Miss Kearny, we never heard it!” Andy cried. Caked with dirt, Little Joe clung to Andy’s shirt sleeve.

     Arching an authoritative brow, Ada scolded, “It’s an awfully loud bell. I’m told the cows on the Buxton farm stir when it rings. I find it difficult to imagine neither of you heard it.”

     The captains of industry hung their heads.

     “And just how did you two come by these digging utensils?” Ada demanded to know.

     “I went into the kitchen alone and took them from Chef Leo,” Andy explained. “Little Joe had nothing to do with it!”

     Raising a suspicious brow, Ada asked, “Little Joe, is this true?”

     Little Joe kept quiet, his head bowed, a hand still clutching Andy’s shirt sleeve. He looked to Andy for a cue, but Andy’s unwavering eyes remained pinned on Ada Kearny. Then Little Joe uttered feebly, “No, Miss Kearny. Andy and I were both in the kitchen. We did it together.”

     After hearing Little Joe’s sweet voice of admission, Lucinda hoped Ada would show mercy on the youngsters. Ada ordered them to run straight to the kitchen, return cleaned and dried utensils to Chef Leo after confessing their crime, and await her in the cafeteria. Before Ada  levied her punishment, Andy and Little Joe were swarmed upon by Harold Goolsby, Nicky Rincon, Cynthia Suarez, and others, asking: “Where were you guys?” “What happened to youse?” “Were you hiding?” “Are you in lots of trouble?”

     “I’ll bet Mr. Huey’s gonna have youse burned at the stake,” nine-year-old Billy Bosworth warned.

     “Stop it, Billy!” seven-year-old Cynthia Suarez yelled. “Mr. Huey would never do such a thing! Well, maybe to you he would, you brute, but not to Andy and Little Joe.”

     “Oh yeah; well, I’ve been here longer than you, Cynthia, and I’ve seen him do it,” Billy Bosworth swore.

     The graveness of the nine-year-old brute’s tenor was akin to one recalling an eerie folk legend; everyone lent an attentive ear. Billy told them, “First, he ties you to a stake for two whole days, with food smeared all over your bare bodies so hawks and crows swoop down on you. And once the food is gone, those angry birds peck out your eyes and start working on your fingers and toes. Then, when Mr. Huey has seen enough of what birds can do to defenseless little boys, he sets them on fire!”

     Startled, Little Joe grabbed Andy’s arm. “Don’t worry, Little Joe,” said Andy. “You know how Billy just likes to scare everybody.”

     “Yeah, I was just kidding, Little Joe,” Billy admitted. “And if Mr. Huey ever tried to do anything like that to you, we would all band together and stop him.”

     Ada Kearny informed Andy and Little Joe that, while they would not be denied lunch, they forfeited their outside playtime. After listening to the brutish Billy Bosworth, Little Joe didn’t seem disagreeable about being denied the outdoors, sunny Saturday notwithstanding.

     “But Miss Kearny,” Andy pleaded, “it was my idea; Little Joe shouldn’t get punished.”

     “Andy, I can appreciate your altruism,” Saint Pete’s head matron said. Andy’s face twisted at what he presumed was a compliment. “But when I rang the bell for lunch, neither of you came, so you must share the consequences.”

     Andy and Little Joe stood and watched a pack of excitable orphans file out of the cafeteria to enjoy what remained of the day. Andy couldn’t bear listening to the sounds of outdoor play happening without him. He grabbed Little Joe. Off they went to the library to flip through books. Some, Andy could read; others, he had memorized. Oscar Wilde’s The Selfish Giant, he could partly read and had partly memorized; it was a favorite of Little Joe’s; Lucinda Hatch read it aloud numerous times to the younger orphans of Saint Pete’s. Upon her first reading, Lucinda became visibly emotional when learning that Christ incarnate was the child who transformed the giant from wicked to kind. Little Joe would clamor to hear it: A protagonist small in stature yet empowered by love helped Little Joe feel empowered. That night, lying in bed, Andy told Little Joe, “Sorry I got you in trouble today.”

     “It’s okay, Andy; it was worth all the fun we had digging our tunnel, even though it only ended up a hole.”

     “But it was a darn good hole,” Andy said.

     “No one ever dug a better hole than us,” Little Joe declared.

     Stirring with concern, Andy said, “I hope Mister Huey doesn’t have it filled in right away; I wanna show Harold and Nicky how deep we dug. They won’t believe it!”

     “We’re just like real brothers, right, Andy?”

     “You bet we are, Little Joe. You bet.”

     And they were like “real” brothers, these two diggers of dreams. They chose one another. They didn’t look at each other as the brother they could have had, or might have had, but the one they would want to have. And not that he had a say in the matter, but Andy reassured Little Joe he would never agree to an adoption unless he and Little Joe got taken in tandem. It was a noble thought; however, once a child surpasses age three, the likelihood of adoption decreases precipitously. It seldom occurs, but sometimes, an older child gets plucked from the bosom of Saint Pete’s. 

     The majority of St. Pete’s children are handed over by birth mothers ill-equipped to care for an infant. Some arrive at age three or older because a parent died, was declared unfit, or abandoned. Then there are those rare cases when a child older than an infant but younger than three was wandering outside the gates of Saint Pete’s wearing a nametag taped to his shirt that read: My name is Andy. But those are rare cases, indeed.     

     Because the highest percentage of adoptions is of infants and toddlers, most adoptions go unnoticed. When a school-age child goes to live with a foster family, it’s explained: So-and-so has gone to live with distant relatives. The terms “adoption” and “foster family” never get mentioned. Moreover, such talk is discouraged. However, children are far more intuitive than adults realize and have a way of figuring matters for themselves.

     “Perhaps we should consider changing our stock explanation for when an older child leaves us before aging out,” Ada Kearny suggested to Clayton Huey.

     “What shall we tell the others: Johnny got a job cutting the grass at Forbes Field?” Ada frowned at Clayton Huey’s mild sarcasm.

     “Of course not, Clayton. But some older boys are becoming suspicious of these so-called distant relatives. Just the other day, when the others noticed Charlie Werner missing—before we had a chance to say word one on the subject—I overheard Frankie O’Rourke say to Maxi Brenner, ‘Hey Maxi, looks like another one of those distant relatives showed up.’”

     “I see,” said Clayton Huey. He squeezed his brow, musing over a matter that seldom occurs yet has become an issue.

     “Clayton, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my years here at Saint Pete’s: Never underestimate children.”

     “Mmm, distant relatives.” It was to himself that Clayton Huey mulled over a term assumed vague and impersonal. Why would anyone feel bad or excluded because another was carted off to someplace vague and impersonal by those essentially strangers? “You don’t detect any unhappiness among the children, do you, Ada?”

     “You’ve done a remarkable job, Clayton. Peter Ward Montgomery would be proud of you.”

     “I’d like to think our late founder and benefactor would be proud of everyone, Ada—you, in particular.”

     Ada smiled with diffidence at what she alleged was too much generosity. She turned to leave. Clayton Huey’s eyes followed her willowy form to the door. As Ada twisted the knob, he muttered, in the tenor of an afterthought, “I never imagined they’d catch on.” He paused to observe that his afterthought forbade Ada’s feet from carrying her further. But a spell of transitory bliss would not blossom on the strength of its own virtue; it required nurturing. Clayton Huey desperately searched for something to say to keep Ada Kearny in his presence. All he could manage was to mutter, “Ada, if you happen to think of anything, please let me know.” Ada nodded, closed the door behind her, and let Clayton Huey ponder a lost opportunity alone.  

     Life went on at Saint Pete’s Orphanage. The boys came down with suspicious illnesses and phantom injuries to spend time with Nurse Jackson, and she, in her Southern drawl, regaled them with tales of overseas adventures. She smiled glibly when Frankie O’Rourke hobbled into the infirmary with a mild ankle twist, claiming a sprain. “It doesn’t look sprained, Frankie,” she told him.

     “But it could be,” Frankie stubbornly maintained. “You never know.”

     Following Nurse Jackson’s pointless examination, Frankie said, “Major Jacks, how’d that one go about the chief nurse who locked herself in the airplane bathroom?”

     “Ah, that one,” the former flight nurse intoned. “We were flying into Germany, cruising at thirty thousand feet. The turbulence was awful, the worst I ever felt; we hit pocket after pocket, dippin’ like we were goin’ over waterfalls with no warning. Believe me, it can be scary up there when you’re young and don’t have a whole lotta air experience. We didn’t know it, but our chief nurse was locked in the bathroom for darn near an hour before we heard her pounding on the door; it’s noisy as hell on those C-141s. Besides, we had our minds so fixed on the turbulence we forgot all about her, didn’t miss ‘er at all. And it takes some force to pound on a door hard enough to where others can hear above a jet engine; it’s a miracle she didn’t end up with broken hands. And that dang door was stuck all right; we had to pry the sonofabitchin’ thing off with a crowbar. After we rescued her, boy, did we give her the business! But she told us, ‘Had this aircraft gone down, I already took care of business; the rest of y’all woulda had a nice load in your drawers.”’

     The former flight nurse sprayed Frankie O’Rourke’s ankle with a meaningless disinfectant. Frankie jumped down from the examining table with the agility of a cat. In a flash, he was back outside playing basketball.

     Few lived for their work more than Lucinda Hatch. The gleam in Lucinda’s eyes over the privilege to care for children was ever-present, and the children, particularly the younger ones, adored “Nurse Hatch.” Lucinda worked tirelessly to make sure their affections never went unearned.  

     Brutish Billy Bosworth, who was more bark than bite, continued scaring children younger than him with outlandish tales. Cynthia Suarez, who seldom missed an opportunity to use her sharp tongue on male peers, didn’t hesitate to put Billy in his place. Although impressed with the hole Andy and Little Joe excavated, Harold Goolsby and Nicky Rincon jibed the diggers for believing they could tunnel through the globe to China. With his sweet voice and diminutive stature, Little Joe remained the darling of Saint Pete’s and Andy’s shadow. Finally, Clayton Huey worked up enough nerve to graduate from silently coveting a prize called Ada Kearny to dropping hints and making gestures. For example, at the Halloween party, he overheard Ada tell Leona Wells, “It would be lovely if the Blue Spruces flanking the front gate were adorned with Christmas lights?” Come Christmastime, the Blue Spruces were blanketed with lights. Then came the clincher: At the Memorial Day cookout, Clayton Huey, with the anticipation of summer in the air, overheard Ada intone to Maria De Soto, who had admired a patch of irises, “For its blossom and fragrance, there is no flower lovelier than an Oriental Lily; it is my absolute favorite.” The next day, Saint Pete’s Director was on the phone with the head groundskeeper to come and plant one hundred Oriental Lily bulbs. A month later, one hundred stalks burst through the ground and produced blossoms in due course.

     Was Ada Kearny overcome by a sea of willowy stems supporting a floral profusion that sent forth an intoxicating fragrance? Indeed. But what stirred her more than the flowers themselves was Clayton Huey’s thoughtfulness. She decided it deserved a response that exceeded a simple thank you. Ada composed a letter: 

Dear Clayton,

Because of your kindness and affinity for beauty, Saint Pete’s has never looked lovelier. And how did you come to learn Oriental Lilies are my favorite flower? Do forgive me, Clayton; I don’t mean to be so bold as to suggest that you planted them only on my account, though I can’t begin to express how it pleases me. What a delightful occurrence I have to look forward to each summer. I can only hope to live a hundred years.

Fondly,

Ada

To which Clayton replied:

Dearest Ada,

At last, we are equal, albeit for only one month of the calendar year. For the past several years, I have been an admirer of beauty, but from too safe a distance. Now, we may both partake in the joy of admiration. Though I’m sorry to say, your admiration will be much shorter-lived than mine, for soon the petals from your flowers will fall to the earth, whereas the flower I admire will go on blooming season after season, year after year. I suppose it is I who requires forgiveness, for never before have I acted so boldly. No longer do I wish to stand at so safe a distance.

Most Fondly,

Clayton

     Frothing with the exuberance of youth, Ada Kearny went lilting into the infirmary, letter in hand. She sought Lucinda Hatch, the only staff member at Saint Pete’s who was as young as Ada was feeling.

     “Ada, call me crazy—because I’m certainly no expert in these matters—but it sounds as if Mister Huey is preparing to propose!”

     “Do you think so, Lucinda?”

     “Ada, you’re glowing,”

     “So, I am.” And off Ada went, waltzing from the infirmary. Three weeks later, on the grounds of Saint Pete’s Orphanage, in front of one hundred Oriental Lilies, Ada Kearny became Mrs. Clayton Huey.

     Cynthia Suarez gathered the freshest of the fallen Lily petals the morning of the wedding and laid them in a circle. Inside that meticulously crafted circle, Ada and Clayton exchanged their vows. Little Joe was chosen as the ring bearer but insisted Andy remain at his side. Little Joe refused to admit a case of nerves, only that he wanted Andy to have a role in the ceremony.

     “Gee, I’ve never been to a wedding before,” said Harold Goolsby, wide-eyed with anticipation.

     “Of course, you weren’t, you nitwit,” brutish Billy Bosworth bellowed. “You’re an orphan!”

     “Nice work, Billy,” snapped Cynthia Suarez. “On the day of Miss Kearny’s wedding, let’s remind one another we got dropped on a doorstep!”

     “Nicky Rincon,” Lucinda Hatch intoned, “did you have to wear the pants with the hole in the knee?”

     “Nurse Hatch, if I have to be an orphan, I might as well look the part.” 

     “You’re a real overachiever, Racoon!” No sooner than Billy Bosworth’s words flew from his lips, he felt the open hand of Cynthia Suarez connect with the back of his head.

     The wedding was a momentous day for the orphanage, not just for the event’s sake, but it marked a day that enabled each child to amble about with their heads held higher than usual. It was Clayton Huey’s idea to stage the wedding on the grounds of Saint Pete’s. It required no twisting of Ada’s arm, especially when Clayton explained the pride the children would take if involved in an event so momentous as a wedding. Still, Ada accused Clayton of trying to save a fortune on invitations. Soon after her playful accusation reached Clayton’s ears, the Director of Saint Pete’s flared with the excitement of inspiration. “Ada,” he cried, “we’re going to give the children of Saint Pete’s something they never received—something the children of orphanages never receive—an official invitation to a wedding!” 

     Ada took care of the invitations; she understood it would require three different kinds: one for the children who couldn’t yet read, another for those at the beginning stages of literacy, and another for those able to read fluidly. Young, old, and in between, it thrilled the orphans of Saint Pete’s to discover their names printed on fancy envelopes.

     “Hey Maxi, what’s yours say?” Frankie O’Rourke beamed with curiosity.

     “It says…” Maxi Brenner gave the letter a second look, then a third, before stating with incredulity, “…I’m invited to a wedding!”

     “Whudda ya know,” said Frankie, “mine says the same.”

     “Who’s getting married?” Andy asked the older boys. Andy had yet to finish tearing open his envelope.

     “It says here,” Maxi began—everyone who hadn’t finished tearing open their invitation picked up their ears— “you are cordially invited to the wedding of Billy Bosworth and Cynthia Suarez.”

     “No way!” Billy Bosworth indignantly flared. “I would never marry that swine!”

     “That’s because she knows how to put you in your place,” Frankie reminded Billy.

     Andy resented Billy Bosworth referring to Cynthia Suarez as a swine but elected not to start up against the older boy. Andy favored Cynthia; her golden-brown hair, olive complexion, deep-set eyes, and wide mouth became his idea of pretty.

     When finally finished opening his invitation, Harold Goolsby sounded dumbfounded when he cried out, “Miss Kearny and Mr. Huey are getting married? To each other?”

     “No, to each other’s pet Poodles!” Billy Bosworth sharply retorted.

     Laughter rang throughout the dorm.

     “Aren’t they…old?” intoned Nicky Rincon.

     All the boys were holding an open invitation when Maxi announced, “Hey, fellas, we’re all invited to a wedding. I think it’s a pretty cool deal that we have an opportunity to participate in a ceremony of such meaning. How about it? What do you say?”

     The boys of Saint Pete’s all looked up to Maxi Brenner, not just the younger ones, like Andy, but everyone. The room settled into a state of calm. To an orphan, everyone took a moment to reflect on Maxi’s words, that they had a reason to stand straight with their shoulders back and heads held high.

     Ada took a moment to gaze at the room before she and Clayton guided a knife through a multitiered confection. She saw orphans, young and old, conducting themselves as ladies and gentlemen. “Clayton, you are a genius,” she whispered.

     “In all my life and travels, I don’t believe I saw a wedding cake disappear so quickly,” said Nurse Jackson.

     “Or one so well enjoyed,” added Lucinda Hatch.

     What most thrilled the children of Saint Pete’s was hobnobbing in a social setting with teachers and staff members and watching them dance with their spouses. The cafeteria provided the stage for many Halloween and Christmas parties, but not until today had it seen dancing. Before long, many teenage girls got into the act; the boys were a bit slower in shedding their inhibitions. More followed after a few worked up enough nerve to ask a girl for a dance. Before long, most of the room was on its feet; no one wanted to feel omitted from the festivity, even if it meant twirling on your own, which was the case with Billy Bosworth, who, despite egged on by his peers, refused to ask Cynthia Suarez for a dance.

     Billy Bosworth or no Billy Bosworth, Cynthia had no shortage of partners; whether in a group of girls, a quick twirl with a teenage boy, or a whole number with Lucinda Hatch, her little feet danced every number. Despite spending most of the day with the younger boys and Little Joe, Andy’s eyes never lost track of Cynthia.

     Eventually, young and old, adult and child—even brutish Billy Bosworth—joined in the line dance. Like all line dances, it began with plenty of vigor and spirit, as gone were the inhibitions some feel when lacking the benefit of being chained to a multitude. Often, the chain links get stressed and come undone after a turn or two around the room. Not so on the day that Mr. and Mrs. Clayton Huey exchanged vows; the line swelled and gathered strength with each lap around the room—on and on, its momentum increased, its collective feet pounding out a deafening crescendo. Ada was the first to falter. Clayton joined her in the center of the room, where they were content to spectate. Then, two-by-two, friends, staff, and their spouses resigned and got herded to the center.

     Only the orphans of Saint Pete’s were left to carry on. Somehow, the dance intensified—the room transformed into a swarm capable of imposing its will; the adults sensed they were trapped within a circle of tribal savagery. Around and around the room, the prancing feet of critical mass stampeded, its hurling gait sent forth in exaggerated thrusts. It possessed unity and power, this unbroken chain, engendering wariness and curiosity among its enveloped prey on the way to an undetermined climax. With eyes wild and primitive, the orphans of Saint Pete’s gyrated to ancient drumbeats meant to summon a false god or idol, and as a preponderance of youthful, unbroken humanity encircled its caretakers, none carried within them the weighty thought of life after aging out of an orphanage; there was no contemplation of birth parents or if a distant relative would sweep someone away; for the orphans of Saint Pete’s, July 26, 1969, marked a day that saw the essence of freedom rain like an August thunderstorm. But it was just a day, and every day must end, as must a line dance. Little Joe was the first to falter; his little lungs became stressed. He puffed and coughed his way to a seat. Andy rushed to his side. Before long, the chain separated link by link; the dance ended. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, though no one faulted Little Joe or Andy for tending to a friend.

     “What came over our children?” Nurse Jackson asked.

     “I couldn’t say,” replied Lucinda. She paused. Gesturing at a room filled with calm, spent children, she said, “It seems silly admitting it now, but for a minute, I felt nervous.”

     “It doesn’t seem silly at all,” said Nurse Jackson.

     Leona Wells rounded up the girls and ushered them off to bed. Maria De Soto did the same for the boys. Meanwhile, Mr. and Mrs. Clayton Huey strolled the grounds to enjoy the night air and fragrance of the lilies. They stood in the same spot where, just hours ago, they exchanged their vows—the very area where Cynthia Suarez meticulously arranged fallen petals.

     “Clayton, something just occurred to me.” A note of urgency rang in Ada’s tenor. “We need fifty-four more lilies.”

     “Fifty-four?” Curiosity beamed in the newlywed. Knowing Ada as he had, there was nothing arbitrary about fifty-four. 

     “Yes. Then we shall have one lily for every child at Saint Pete’s.”

     “I’ll be out here first thing in the morning with my trowel.”

     “I love you, Clayton.”

     Andy had difficulty sleeping. It wasn’t the excitement of the wedding keeping him awake but a burning question unsettling his youthful mind. He sat up in his bed—his eyes adjusted to the dark—and surveyed the dorm. No one appeared to be awake or stirring. He fell against his mattress and tried to forget what ruined his sleep. Eventually, his tussling caused Maxi Brenner to stir. Andy sprang upward in his cot and cleared his throat, hoping to gain someone’s attention.

     “Hey, kiddo,” said Maxi, “are you all right over there? Did you eat too much cake?”

     “I’m fine, Maxi,” Andy lied. With a sigh connoting frustration, he fell against his mattress with a thud. Before long, he sprang to a sitting position. This time, Maxi demanded, “All right, Andy, out with it; what’s bugging you?” 

     “Maxi, how do you ask a girl to marry you?” Andy was not the only one with that burning question on his mind. No sooner than he asked, everyone within earshot sat up in their cots and eagerly awaited Maxi’s reply. Instead of satisfying a room brimming with curiosity, Maxi, drolly, asked, “Andy, are you planning to marry anytime soon?” Laughter echoed throughout the dorm.

     “No,” Andy replied, as though Maxi’s question had legitimacy, “but I was wondering how you go about asking a girl.”

     “Yeah, I was wondering the same,” Harold Goolsby cried out.

     “Me too, Maxi,” chimed in the ever-eager Nicky Rincon. “And how do you know which girl to ask?”

     “First things first,” Maxi began. “You need to get a girl to fall in love with you.”

     Mystified, the younger boys looked at one another, their juvenile minds powerless to grasp how such an endeavor was achievable.

     “Maxi’s right,” said Frankie O’Rourke.  “That’s the trick, getting a girl to fall in love with you. Once you manage that, the only thing left is to fall on a knee, promise her the world, and she’ll leap into your arms!”

     “What if you get a girl to fall in love with you, ask her to marry you, and she says no ‘cause another guy likes her? Won’t you feel like an idiot?” The business of marriage marked a genuine concern for Harold Goolsby.

     “No need to worry, Harold,” said Billy Bosworth. “If you’re an idiot, to begin with, you’ll never know the difference.”

     “Very funny, Billy,” Harold moaned.

     “Harold, if you can get a girl to fall in love with you, chances are, when you ask for her hand in marriage, she’ll say yes,” Maxi assured the younger boy.

     “Think of it as standing on third base and no outs,” said Frankie O’Rourke. “You’re as good as home!”

     “Yeah, but how do you get a girl to fall in love with you?” It was Andy who posed the mystifying question.

     “Andy, that’s one of the mysteries of the universe,” said Maxi. “When we figure it out, we’ll let you in on it; I promise.”

     “It’d be a lot easier if the girls had to ask us to marry them,” said Nicky Rincon.

     “What’s the matter, Nicky,” Billy Bosworth taunted, “can’t take the pressure? Afraid of rejection? You were already dropped on a doorstep, for crying out loud!”

     “Very funny, Billy,” Nicky groused. “I bet you don’t have the guts to ask Cynthia to get married.”

     “Go to sleep, Raccoon!” snapped Billy. “That’ll be the day when yours truly asks Cynthia Swinez for a hand in marriage!”

     “Cynthia’s no swine,” Andy protested.

     “Hey, fellas, did we not have a good time today?” Maxi had no aversion to banter in the dorm but defused situations whenever he suspected them on the verge of cutting too deep.

     “You bet we did, Maxi,” said Nicky. One by one, the rest of the boys agreed, and, as always, the night ended with everyone as friends and parentless allies.

     As Andy lay down his head, it occurred to him that Little Joe had slept the entire time; throughout all the lively banter, not once did he stir.

*****

     Little Joe was always first to home plate once teams got chosen, positions taken, and a kickball game commenced. Little Joe’s place in the kicking order was one of many ground rules put into effect by children, let alone to make executive decisions. Upon leading off, regardless of how near, far, sharply, or softly he kicks the ball, Little Joe must arrive safely at first base. The darling of Saint Pete’s had not grown much since the day he and Andy ventured a tunnel to China, but Little Joe enjoyed nothing better than a kickball game.  

     Extraordinary occurrences accompanied Little Joe’s first turn at the plate—well-orchestrated and haphazardous events. For example, if Little Joe kicked a dribbler to the right, the pitcher and first baseman, upon converging on the ball, would tangle or collide as Little Joe streaked down the line to first base. If Little Joe kicked a weak grass-hugger to the left, the third baseman would invariably stumble over an uneven clump of turf. If Little Joe managed to wallop one past the pitcher, the second baseman would take the wrong angle, dive for the ball, and miss. By the time the shortstop backed up the botched effort, Little Joe was standing on first base. Whatever the scenario, it was paramount that the error looked plausible, so Little Joe believed he had gained first base by merit. Once Little Joe advanced to third base, he would yell in his tiny voice: Come on, Nicky, Andy, or whoever was up next, knock me in! The joy on Little Joe’s face when reaching home plate was priceless. 

     Little Joe kicked one of his grass-huggers down the third baseline. Wally Kennedy ranged for the ball, tripped over one of those imaginary clumps of turf, and tumbled into a shoulder roll. By the time Stretch O’Leary, the pitcher, retrieved the ball, Little Joe stood safely at first. Next up was Matthew Horner; he kicked a sharp one into right field. Nicky Rincon gathered it up and fired the ball to second base, but Little Joe, who dug hard, arrived ahead of the throw. Next, Judy Knowles, who could kick the ball as far as any boy, walloped one to center field. Billy Bosworth caught the ball on the run, but his momentum took him toward right field; it enabled Little Joe to tag up and go to third. Then it was Andy’s turn. He kicked a sharp grounder to the right. Harold Goolsby ranged, scooped up the ball, and fired it toward the plate. The throw went wide to the first base side. Cheers erupted over what should have been the game’s first run, then ceased when it occurred to everyone the run never crossed the plate. A band of bemused orphans turned their attention to third base, where they expected the darling of Saint Pete’s to be standing because he hadn’t crossed the plate. Little Joe wasn’t there. From the corner of his eye, Andy spotted Little Joe bent at the waist, his purposeful strides carrying him toward the cafeteria. No one could fathom why, without word or warning, Little Joe strayed from a base; it was unlike him to quit on a game and unthinkable when about to score the game’s first run.

     “Hey, what’s goin’ on with Little Joe?” came many disquieting calls.

     Andy called Little Joe’s name as he took off toward the cafeteria. The darling of Saint Pete’s didn’t respond. When Andy caught up with Little Joe, it alarmed him to see how winded Little Joe was and how forcefully he coughed.

     “Are you okay?” Andy’s words rang with concern. How could tagging up from second to third cause anyone to gasp and hack so vigorously?

     “I’ll be fine, Andy,” Little Joe managed. “I’m just having a little trouble catching my breath.”

     “A little trouble?” Andy shrieked before signaling for Maria De Soto, who ordered Little Joe to the infirmary.

     “I’ll go with him,” Andy cried.

     “So far as I can see, nothing is wrong, Little Joe, but you did suffer a spell,” said Lucinda. “It would be wise if you stayed here with me… just until lunchtime.” 

     “I’m all right, Andy,” said Little Joe, who, upon Lucinda’s probing, was more composed than his friend. Then he said, with a start, “You better get back, Andy; you’re supposed to be on first base!”

     Andy left the infirmary halfheartedly and returned to the base he earned with a safe kick. He offered a succinct reply to a clamor of voices owning a common concern, then began to piece together the events of recent days: Little Joe faltering during a line dance, sleeping through a lively dorm, walking off the field winded and coughing; he intuited they were not random, isolated events, but developments with a relationship. But what did they mean?  Andy tried to keep his head in the game, but his distraction revealed a feeble effort. At no time before had his body and mind occupied separate domains: the former ambled about perfunctorily, the latter with an immoderacy of misgiving. What might Little Joe have done to cause such gasping and coughing?  Andy scanned the rambling acres of an orphanage occupied with children playing kickball, basketball, dodgeball, jump rope, tag, checkers, etc. So many actions and functions from every direction unfolded before him with alarming alacrity—it was as if the world shifted into another gear and left him behind—and the playful sounds of these activities and functions reached his ears in a garbled jumble. An old familiar sound brought back his equilibrium: the ringing of the iron bell. Following the echoing gong was a buzzing multitude, ceasing its numerous activities to begin its march toward the cafeteria.     

     The children rushed past the willowy newlywed with greetings of, “Hi, Miss Kearny.” By the dozen, they whizzed by, eager to fill their growling bellies, calling out Ada’s maiden name. Ada repeatedly reminded the hungry horde, “It’s Mrs. Huey.” The horde echoed back, “Okay, Miss Kearny.”

     Little Joe didn’t make it to lunch; he slept in the infirmary until late afternoon. Weariness persisted at dinner; sitting up at the table seemed an effort, and he displayed a meager appetite. Later that night, Andy read aloud to Little Joe. Shortly after he began, Andy discovered he was reading to himself; Little Joe again succumbed to exhaustion. The following morning, Little Joe seemed more himself; he ate an adequate breakfast for one his size, and, though not energetic, he was perkier, though Nurse Jackson thought he looked pale and said to Ada Huey, “Keep an eye on him, and send him to me if you detect a notable change.”

     “Gwen, is there something you suspect?” Ada Huey’s tenor rang with appropriate concern; Ada intuited Nurse Jackson saw a sign forewarning something ominous.

     “Not yet,” the retired major lied.

     The day came and went without incident. The darling of Saint Pete’s was back to his old self. The waning weeks of summer would see two more instances when Little Joe got winded by activities requiring mild exertion. He managed to stay out of the infirmary and keep both episodes secret. Only Andy was aware.

     The school year began the Wednesday after Labor Day. Not much about first grade surprised Little Joe, as Andy devoted time leading up to day one, prepping him. Because of his diminutive size, Missus Cole assigned Little Joe the front row. Sitting up front is handy for seeing the chalkboard and getting noticed when one can supply the correct answer when competing with other raised hands, but not so hot a spot when one experiences difficulty staying awake. Little Joe hadn’t the stamina to endure an entire school day; he would return from afternoon recess exhausted and fall asleep no sooner than he sank into his seat. By mid-September, Missus Cole solved the problem; she had Little Joe forgo afternoon recess and use the time to nap. It worked for a spell. But no sooner than the briskness of autumn arrived, Mrs. Cole also had Little Joe napping through morning recess; it pained her to keep him indoors, especially in a season when the air is freshest. “Growing boys belong outdoors in the fresh air. What can I do?” she cried to Ada.

     Indoors or out, fresh air or otherwise, Little Joe was not growing.

     “I don’t know why I’m so tired all the time,” he moaned to Andy.

     Seeing he was down in the dumps, Andy told Little Joe, “We don’t have to play outside today; let’s go to the library. We’ll play kickball when you’re feeling better.”

     Andy grabbed an abridged and illustrated copy of Robin Hood and His Merry Men from a shelf. He and Little Joe sank into a chair and allowed themselves to get lost in adventure: how Robin became an outlaw, met Little John, and dwelt in the Sherwood Forest. With each page turn, they became more immersed and enraptured in a fictional time long ago. They had no difficulty embracing the characters and seeing themselves, Harold Goolsby and Nicky Rincon, as outlaws who stole from the rich and gave to the poor.

     “Maxi would make the best Robin Hood,” said Andy.

     “And Frankie would be perfect as Little John,” said Little Joe.

     They agreed Billy Bosworth was best suited as the Sheriff of Nottingham. There was no disputing who Andy saw as Maid Marion, but before he had the chance to reveal his choice of Cynthia Suarez, he noticed blood trickling from Little Joe’s nose. He located tissues, pulled Little Joe from the chair, and led the way to the infirmary.

     “Major Jacks,” he cried, “Little Joe has a nosebleed!”

     “I see,” said Nurse Jackson. Her reticence inspired calm.  

     “Does it have anything to do with why he’s so tired all the time?”

     Nurse Jackson paused. She spent the contemplative moment considering how to approach Andy’s intuitive concern. “It’s a beautiful day, Andy,” she said. “You should be outside playing. Don’t worry; I promise to take good care of Little Joe.”

     Before Andy could protest, Little Joe said, “It’s all right, Andy. I’m not afraid. I’ll be fine.”

     When about to involve himself in a kickball game in progress, everyone besieged Andy, clamoring, “Where’s Little Joe?” Andy’s mind drifted from his body, rendering him stuck in a gear that distorted his surroundings. Like before, he was brought back into balance when Ada Huey yanked on the rope that tolled the iron bell. Like before, Little Joe never made it to lunch; the darling of Saint Pete’s slept through the midday meal into the late afternoon. He awakened but spiked a fever high enough to alarm Nurse Jackson. The seasoned flight nurse rang Dr. Krause. Before Dr. Krause arrived, Nurse Jackson brought Little Joe’s fever down two points. Andy returned to the infirmary and read the remaining pages of Robin Hood and His Merry Men. He finished as Dr. Krause arrived. Before leaving, Little Joe uttered feebly, “We’re just like real brothers, right, Andy?”

     “You bet we are, Little Joe.”

     “Does everyone call you Little Joe?” Dr. Krause asked the darling of Saint Pete’s.

     “Everyone.” Pride rang in Little Joe’s tenor.

     “Would you prefer that I call you Little Joe?” asked Dr. Krause

     “I guess so.” Little Joe seemed evasive that his name, as it was familiar to those of Saint Pete’s, was used by an outsider.  Glancing over the patient’s file, Dr. Krause said, “Says here, I haven’t seen you since that stomach virus two years ago.” Little Joe shrugged feebly. For a boy his age, two years was a lifetime ago.

     “That boy who just left: he’s your best friend?”

     “He’s better than a best friend.” Again, Little Joe’s tenor echoed pridefully.

     “I’d bet he’d say the same about you,” said Dr. Krause.

     “He would,” Nurse Jackson chimed in.

     “That makes both of you lucky.” Dr. Krause winked at Little Joe.

*****

     The day of the well-anticipated Christmas party arrived. Saint Pete’s was abuzz. More lights than before adorned the blue spruces flanking the front gate, and the Christmas tree in the cafeteria seemed taller and more magnificent than ever. Clayton Huey squeezed a few extra nickels out of the budget to ensure this Christmas, the holiday party and preparations, would be the best Saint Pete’s had seen.

     Miss Desmond and her kindergarteners rehearsed holiday songs and performed them in each classroom to get everyone in the Christmas spirit. Local bakeries contributed delectables. Clayton Huey wanted the food catered so Chef Leo could have a day off, but the chef protested, “I cook for these children.”

     On the grounds, some of the older boys erected the teepee and kettle that Clayton Huey purchased to hold hot apple cider. Boy Scouts, they were not, but they did manage an adequate fire to heat cider. They managed another fire to roast the twenty pounds of chestnuts and twenty bags of marshmallows a local grocery store donated.

     As the children entered the cafeteria, their ears filled with the strains of Hark, The Herald Angels Sing, sung by a select group of high schoolers. Once the children were seated, the mayor of New Castle took the floor and announced that the city would donate a trip to Cascade Amusement Park in June. The news was greeted with resounding applause. Next, the mayor went from table to table, shaking the hand of every orphan, and wished each one Merry Christmas.

     Little Joe sat erectly as his diminutive form would allow and looked proud in his Pittsburgh Pirates ballcap. Clayton Huey arranged for some Bucs players (Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell, Steve Blass, and Bob Moose) to meet Little Joe and bring him an official cap the entire team signed. Little Joe was thrilled and vowed never to take it off until his hair grew back. Many of the boys tried to persuade Little Joe to shed his cap.  “Give your head a rest,” they begged him. Maxi Brenner told Little Joe, “God only made a few perfect heads; the rest He covered with hair.”

     Andy and Maxi each offered to have their heads shaved if Little Joe, for a day, took off his cap, but Little Joe wouldn’t budge.

     The welcoming committee that gathered when Little Joe arrived home from the hospital was joyous. Not only were the boys thrilled to have the darling of Saint Pete’s back in their midst, but they also wanted to know what it was like to sit in the presence of major leaguers. They clamored to know all Little Joe could tell them about the great Clemente. Some begged to know how big Willie Stargell was in person, while others were interested in whether Steve Blass or Bob Moose showed him how to grip the ball to throw a curve. The diminutive celebrity indulged the crowd; in his tiny voice, he commanded the room despite seeming that his undersized figure might disappear under his cap.

     At Saint Pete’s, regrettably, leukemia and chemotherapy became part of the vocabulary. Maxi Brenner and Frankie O’Rourke tried to learn all they could on the subjects; they wanted to know what Little Joe was up against. Nurse Jackson’s conversations no longer included anecdotal accounts of serving her country.

     Saint Pete’s had not seen a case of leukemia since its founder, Peter Ward Montgomery, was acting director. The burden of answering questions posed by the children and staff fell on the shoulders of Nurse Jackson and Lucinda Hatch. No encounter concluded without someone begging to know, “Will Little Joe get better?” Nurse Jackson thought it best if she and Lucinda had a stock offering. We’re hoping for the best, and Little Joe is fighting the good fight, but it’s in God’s hands, was what the major decided.

     It was a well-measured reply to an often-asked question. Lucinda Hatch choked on the words. “In God’s hands?” she shrieked when discussing Little Joe, in a private moment, with Ada Huey. She seemed unaware of repeating the words and that Ada remained in the room. “In God’s hands.” Disjointedly, Lucinda waved her arms about as an unsettled Ada Huey looked on, sensing that Saint Pete’s junior nurse would unhinge. Ada’s eyes followed Lucinda, agitatedly whirling about. Lucinda placed a firm foot on the floor and pivoted toward Ada. “In God’s hands?” she erupted. “What sort of God stands by with indifference while a young boy fights for his life? Can you explain it? Can you explain why a loving God would destroy one of His truly innocent creations?”

     The foot Lucinda firmly planted and pivoted on faltered. She collapsed in a chair and buried a teary face in her hands. Aside from when reading aloud to children, Lucinda’s soothing voice rarely raised above a hushed tone. The storm of emotion unleashed by Lucinda and the depth from which it gushed set Ada Huey back on her heels. Ada approached the junior nurse, kneeled at her side, and stroked her hair. “Every day, I ask, ‘Why this boy? What plan, and what purpose does it serve?’ Then I dwell on all those poor boys overseas in Vietnam, getting killed, and for what? It gets me thinking: the world is meant to be random and madding, and God treating all the chaos with indifference is His way of teaching us it’s futile to try and make sense of everything; that instead, we should live our lives as blind children and leave everything….” 

     “…In His hands?” There was no mistaking the disdain in Lucinda’s tenor. Ada Huey’s eyes became downcast when she sorrowfully added, “I suppose so.”

     With reticence, for she spent her emotions, Lucinda told Ada, “I once held the hand of a widowed man who had only a son and outlived his friends. I like to believe I gave him some comfort before he slipped away. I understand little of war, be it in Vietnam or anywhere else it’s been waged. But I’m no child; I’m aware people die in wars, and they’re an unfortunate consequence when man reaches an impasse when working through differences. What I mean to say: death, when it comes our way through years of living or a war, I can rationalize. What’s happening here, in our humble enclave, I’m finding much harder to reconcile. War should be a word spoken only to recall history. Pediatric oncology are two words that, past or present, should never go together.”

     “Do you need time away, Lucinda?” The head of Saint Pete’s junior nurse snapped upward as though Ada Huey’s words instantly sobered her. “No!” she sharply replied. “If this is life, so be it; I won’t run from it. If Little Joe can go through this as bravely as he has, I can be there for him every step of the way, for however long the journey lasts.”

     When it came time for the mayor to shake hands with Little Joe, he said, “I understand you are the bravest of the brave.”

     “Thank you, Sir,” said the undersized boy in the oversized Pirates cap. “But I have a million friends, and I get to spend Christmas with every one of them.”

     Cider simmered, chestnuts popped, songs got sung, and between the food and dessert, four of Saint Pete’s teachers took to the floor and performed a recitation of A Christmas Carol they spent hours rehearsing. From the opening words of the first stave of the great Dickens classic, everyone sat enraptured. The younger children laughed when Mrs. Cole, altering her voice, growled, “Bah! Humbug!” and when Scrooge repeatedly snarled, “Good afternoon,” to dismiss his nephew, Fred, who, in vain, persisted in attempting to invite Scrooge for Christmas dinner. Next, two portly gentlemen approached Scrooge about making provisions for the impoverished and dispossessed. Mrs. Cole blasted them by growling, “Are there no prisons?… And the union workhouses?” Andy scanned the cafeteria. He looked into the faces of Saint Pete’s orphans: Harold Goolsby, Nicky Rincon, Cynthia Suarez, and others, including Little Joe, who appeared to shrink under his Pirates cap and wondered if it was them whom Scrooge despised. Andy was aware of prisons but unclear concerning entities such as union workhouses and intuited them as unpromising. For the first time, he considered life after aging out of Saint Pete’s, though no sooner than he began dwelling upon what he purported a gloomy prospect, he remembered the mayor, his kindness, and a trip to Cascade Park on the not-too-distant horizon.  

     As always, A Christmas Carol concluded with the famous line spoken by Tiny Tim: “God bless Us, Every One!” Not to be outdone, Saint Pete’s had its own version of Tiny Tim, and Maxi Brenner lifted Little Joe high atop his shoulders and, in a celebratory manner, led a winding march around the cafeteria. Everyone trailed after the tall, dark-haired boy so many admired; it was a jubilant procession of orphans. Scrooge saw the error of his ways, and for the moment, all was right with the world. As the orphans paraded, they gave a marching ovation to the bowing and appreciative reciters. While all the clamor ensued, Ada stole up from behind Clayton and said, “You better come quick.” She took Clayton by the hand and urged him along.

     “What’s wrong?” Ada’s urgency made Clayton wary that a plumbing fiasco required his attention or an auditor arrived just in time to ruin Christmas.

     “You’ll see soon enough,” said Ada.

     When Clayton Huey opened the door to his office, the stench of booze assailed his nostrils; it permeated from the pores of a liberal consumer. He walked toward a glassy-eyed man sitting slumped on his office couch, then simmered with rage when bellowing, “On your feet, you sonofabitch!”

     With an effort, the glassy-eyed man raised his head to meet Clayton Huey’s glower. He got to his feet, but no sooner than he steadied himself, the force of Clayton shouting, “You thought because we’re a bunch of goddamn orphans, it was okay to show up drunk,” shoved him back onto the couch.

     “Look, fella,” the drunkard explained, “like I told the lady, I had some time between gigs, so I had a few pops. Ain’t no law against that, is there? I’m still good to act jolly and whatever else you need me to do.”

     “You’re a louse,” growled the Director of Saint Pete’s. “Do you think I’d let you anywhere near those children, slurring and smelling as you do? Now, off with the costume!”

     “Whudda ya mean?” the drunkard stammered.

     “Just what I said,” Clayton Huey fumed. “Take the damn thing off!”

     “But I got nothing else to wear,” the drunkard moaned. “And it’s freezin’ outside.”

     “We’ll see that you get clothing to go home in. We’ll also arrange a ride, for your sake and the sake of others. We wouldn’t want you on our conscience.” Whereas Clayton Huey’s combativeness caused the drunkard to act defensive and agitated, Ada Huey’s contrast of poise and reticence caused him to feel shame. She hurriedly ushered the man’s costume to the laundry room to freshen it up. The younger children were eagerly awaiting Santa Claus’s arrival.

     Back in the cafeteria, Harold Goolsby intoned, “That was some story! That Dickens guy must be a heck of an author!”

     “Yeah, Harold, you sure seemed nervous when ol’ Jacob Marley visited Scrooge,” said Frankie O’Rourke. Harold cried, “I wasn’t fooled; I knew all along it was Mister Huey dragging those chains in the kitchen.” 

     “You’re full of it, Harold!” claimed Billy Bosworth.

     “Leave him alone, Billy,” scolded Cynthia Suarez.

     “Andy, I noticed you looking anxious when the ghost of Christmas Future visited Scrooge,” said Maxi Brenner.

     Smiling sheepishly, Andy freely admitted the effect of Scrooge’s third visitation. He was not alone; many had tightened in their seats when Mrs. McVey, portraying the shadowy phantom that led Scrooge to his grave, raised her arm and pointed a menacing finger.

     “Harold’s right,” said Nicky Rincon. “That was some story.”

     “Yeah, well, I woulda liked it better if they recited Oliver Twist,” Billy Bosworth snarkily added.

     “Because you’re an idiot,” Cynthia Suarez retorted.

     Before an exchange of additional snarkiness occurred, a spectacle appeared in the entryway of the cafeteria.

     “Well, far be it from me to barge in uninvited,” came a booming voice that startled everyone into submitting their full attention. “But, from the looks of things, I must be in the right place!”

     Every adult and orphan laid down their utensils. Dessert became less important than it was a minute ago. The spectacle surveyed the room: smiles lit up the faces of the older orphans, and wonder was etched on the faces of the younger ones. After a few hearty ho-ho-hos, the figure sauntered further into the room. The children rose from their seats as he went among them. Before the gregarious and jolly spectacle reached the center of the room, he was swarmed upon with the sort of fervor one might expect from those praying for a hero and whose prayers were answered.  Ada Huey and Lucinda Hatch, teary-eyed, stood and cheered. They knew that Clayton Huey had saved the day and what might be a young boy’s final Christmas.

*****

     The curtain was drawing down on 1969, a year that saw Apollo 11 land on the moon, half a million people gather in upstate New York for the Woodstock Music Festival, the Amazin’ Mets stun the baseball world by taking the Series, and 11,616 American soldiers lose their lives in Southeast jungles in Vietnam.

     The Eagle Has Landed: It was an event whose sounds and images Clayton Huey would not allow to pass uncaptured by the orphans of Saint Pete’s. He purchased two televisions to go with the two they already had and set them up in the cafeteria. The day began with Andy and Little Joe receiving a good ribbing from Billy Bosworth, taunting, “The only thing more impressive than landing on the moon would be tunneling to China, ay guys?”

     “It was ages ago, Billy,” cried Cynthia Suarez. “Let ’em live it down, for crying out loud!”

     The orphans of Saint Pete’s huddled together, eagerly awaiting to see history made. Preventing the cafeteria’s acoustics from becoming a jumble of cacophony required selecting one network. Among the staff were devoted fans of David Brinkley and Frank Reynolds, but with Clayton Huey casting the deciding vote, Walter Cronkite won the day. By day’s end, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins became household names and American heroes. That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

     When Little Joe first took ill, Maxi Brenner, appreciating Andy’s distress, took the youngster under his wing; he kept an eye on Andy and boosted his spirits. Over baseball, the older boy, a hero to the younger orphans, and Andy, troubled over an outcome dangling ominously in doubt, had bonded. When a school day ended, Andy sought out Maxi. Together, they watched every inning of the World Series. Andy had a million questions, and Maxi, displaying tireless patience, explained the game’s finer points.

     “Maxi, why aren’t the Pirates in the World Series? Andy wanted to know. “Aren’t they better than the Mets?”

     “I like to think so. But this year, the Mets had the magic; everything went their way.” It was a painful admission even to a seasoned baseball fan like Maxi Brenner, who understood that, like life, a baseball season doesn’t adhere to a script.

     “Yeah, but the Mets don’t have any players as great as Clemente!”

     “You’re right, Andy; they don’t.”

     “Clemente’s the best player in the league, isn’t he, Maxi?”

     “He’s among baseball’s very best—the others being Mays, Aaron, Killebrew, and Robinson—but Roberto gets my vote.”

     “When was the last time the Pirates won the World Series?” It was deflating for Andy to learn the year was 1960. Hearing a time blurted out that predated his birth caused him to frown as one might’ve had Maxi told them not since before the Great Depression or Civil War. “I was a youngster myself in 1960. I don’t remember the Series in detail, other than the Pirates beating the Yankees and Mazeroski hitting a Series-clinching homer. And yes, Clemente was on the team then,” Maxi added, anticipating Andy’s next question.

     Not long after the calendar flipped to 1970, Saint Pete’s learned it was not immune to the war in Vietnam. Maria De Soto’s son, Vince, Miss Desmond’s younger brother, Mitch, and Clayton Huey’s nephew, Carson, received draft cards. With the war reaching the gates of Saint Pete’s, along with adoption, foster homes, and distant relatives, the United States’ initiative in Vietnam became a discouraged subject. The Director of Saint Pete’s decided, “An orphaned life is complicated enough; aging out of an orphanage only to get sent into combat is ludicrous!”

     Even those declaring themselves “fierce anticommunists” —for they understood a system that produced gulags would see orphans as disposable—developed views toward America’s Vietnam initiative ranging from contentious to corrosive. The anguish over the war mounted not by the week, rendering America’s presence in Southeast Asia too volatile a subject upon which to keep a lid.  Nevertheless, Clayton Huey objected to the notion that war should weigh on the minds of Saint Pete’s high schoolers. Ada Huey told the Director, “It does no good to keep them in the dark concerning matters of war and politics. We must prepare our young men to live in the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.” Thus, along with leukemia and the current standard of its treatment—methotrexate chemotherapy—the war in Vietnam was among the dark subjects of the day.

     Occasionally, the children became privileged to the contentiousness and corrosiveness Clayton Huey feared. Among the staff came grumblings: “Nixon ran on the promise he would pull us out of this morass.” Others yammered, “Blame Nixon if it makes you feel better, but it was that dammed playboy, Kennedy, who steered us into this quagmire, and now where is he?” Another thoughtlessly scapegoated Civil Rights, citing that Johnson proved incapable of effectively dividing his time between matters home and abroad; thus, when turning the page from Civil Rights to Vietnam, he upped the war initiative to induce a swift ending. “By the time LBJ pulled his head out of his ass, Mao had North Vietnam fortified with 170 thousand Chinese troops, and a river of aid was flowing down from Brezhnev and his Soviet goons!” Another, unconcerned with political recrimination or aftermath either way, subscribed to the gruff philosophy: “What the hell difference does it make if a pissant country like South Vietnam goes communist?” As was the case throughout the country, frustrations were mounting at Saint Pete’s. 

     During this period of open discourse, the high schoolers of Saint Pete’s sought Nurse Jackson. The older orphans saw a war actively prosecuted with no foreseeable end, looming on their horizon and awaiting their participation. It was only natural for them to want to learn all they could about the daily grind of life in the military. Ever a handy resource, Major Jacks became a best friend to all those at Saint Pete’s with a foot out the door. When noticing them consumed with worry, she would tell them, “I’d take my chances on a battlefield any day over a serious illness. Regardless of how we feel about the war, it can’t be as wrong as a young boy with leukemia.” Invariably, a soon-to-be aged-out young man would gaze at Little Joe—his bald head, his undersized figure below that oversized Pirates cap he stubbornly wore—and reconcile, despite the prospects of becoming involved in a war, he wouldn’t trade places with the darling of Saint Pete’s.

     With how he comported himself, Little Joe symbolized bravery. Seldom, if ever, did a word of complaint escape his lips; he refused to feel sorry for himself or tolerate sympathy from others. Every day, Little Joe dragged himself to class. Sometimes, Little Joe muddled through a day; other days, he faltered. Whenever he fell behind, there was always Andy to get him up to speed.

     What kept Little Joe’s spirit buoyant through the long, frigid Western Pennsylvania winter was anticipating the first kickball game; it would take place no sooner than the ice and chill reluctantly surrendered to spring. Little Joe imagined running up to the ball and giving it a good wallop before dashing to first base. After advancing to second and third, he would come racing home safely with the game’s first run. Indeed, what coursed through his veins, aside from medicines, was the thrill of green grass, the warmth of spring sunshine, and the exhilaration of running—otherwise, the modest joys of boyhood.

*****

     In 1891, Colonel Levi Brinton, a Civil War veteran, purchased land, thencommonly known to locals as Big Run Falls. One year and five thousand greenbacks later, the Colonel opened Brinton Park. Its first attraction, a steam-driven canvas-topped merry-go-round, created a sensation. Before the turn of the century, the New Castle Traction Company purchased the seventy-acre park for sixteen thousand dollars. Before long, the park doubled in size. A landscape architect was brought in from Boston to design flower beds and excavate an area to form a lake to serve as the park’s centerpiece. The town held a contest to see who could come up with a nifty name for the new attraction, and Edwina Norris, whose entry was Cascade Park, walked off with the ten-dollar prize. 

     “Ten bucks!” crowed Billy Bosworth. “What a rip!”

     “Consider the time,” said Maxi. “Ten bucks then would be the equivalent of a hundred today.”

     “Besides,” added Frankie O’Rourke, “it coulda been worse, like a free toaster, assuming toasters were invented. At least, with ten bucks, Edwina Norris could buy something she wanted, like a new dress or bicycle.” 

     Decades passed. The lake absorbed silt until it resembled a swamp. By the mid-1950s, Paul Vesco, who operated the park in collaboration with the city, saw the benefit of a lake and had it restored, and the boating, fishing, and swimming once enjoyed resumed. The mid-1950s also saw the park offer a new merry-go-round, auto scooters, a Ferris wheel, a whip, swings, and various other amusements. It also featured a dance pavilion where live bands played music. But Cascade Park’s grandest attraction was the Comet—a roller coaster built over a gorge. The school year was winding down, and, as Ada Huey observed, “Saint Pete’s is on pins and needles counting the days!”

     “And why shouldn’t it? It’s Christmas in June!” bellowed Clayton Huey.

     It thrilled the Director when the orphans of Saint Pete’s got to partake in privileges advantaged children take for granted. Not everyone shared his excitement. Andy wished he could but grappled with reconciling the slim hope Little Joe would board one of the buses escorting them to Cascade Park. The darling of St. Pete’s enjoyed four months of remission before his leukemia reemerged. Once it did, he spent more time at the hospital than at the orphanage. When home, his day would dwindle quickly. As weeks passed, enduring a school day became more difficult for Little Joe. He battled with all the determination and fortitude he could summon that every minute of the day should belong to him and not a disease, and there was no shortage of friends rooting him on.

     Spring had begun with offerings of hope. The opening day of the baseball season saw Andy seek out Maxi Brenner. Over nine innings of watching the Pirates, Maxi lost track of how many questions Andy pressed him to field. But Maxi was never one to display pithiness when urged to satisfy a youngster’s curiosity.

     The season’s first warm Saturday, the first kickball game kicked off. Little Joe was the first to step to the plate. He kicked the ball past Judy Knolls, who was pitching and leveraged such that her faulty effort, which saw her tardily react to a grass-hugger, seemed plausible. Wally Kennedy, playing second base, ranged to his right; he appeared to have a beat on the ball and, in a well-timed athletic maneuver, would scoop the ball and shovel it to first base. Instead, Wally mistimed his lunge. The ill-conceived ploy took him into a shoulder roll. Wally sprang to his feet empty-handed, and, sprinting with determination, Little Joe arrived safely at first base. After Little Joe advanced to second base, then third, Matthew Horner kicked a sharp liner up the middle into center field, and the undersized boy in his oversized Pirates cap came dashing home with the game’s first run. He reached home plate to a throng of cheers and congratulatory hugs, but the effort winded him. Little Joe took the field, but before his next turn at the plate, he was relegated to a spectator. Later that afternoon came a spike in temperature. Dr. Krause arrived that night. The following morning, Little Joe was back in the hospital.

     Later in the season, Andy tiptoed into the infirmary. Tucked in his arm was Little Joe’s favorite story: The Selfish Giant. Glory in small packages, triumph through love, goodness winning the day—otherwise, intrinsic human qualities that tend to flourish when we embrace the light of Humanity’s Conscience. It was a story whose value and virtue Little Joe could not hear enough. Andy was taken aback when he saw his friend not wearing his Pirates ballcap, his hairless head exposed. The cap was at Little Joe’s side, held loosely by the tips of his fingers. How proudly Little Joe had worn the cap. Presently, he appeared to have little regard for it, that any second, it would slip through his fingers and fall to the floor. Andy took the cap and placed it squarely on Little Joe’s chest.

     “How come you’re not wearing your cap?” Andy regretted the question no sooner than he posed it, for anxious for affirmation, he was not. To learn the truth, to hear Little Joe utter words of surrender, would mean Andy could no longer pretend: not for another day, or what remained of the current day, could he pretend a miracle would intercede, that God, in His mercy, would reach down and pluck Little Joe’s life from the flames that so menacingly enveloped him. But Little Joe let Andy off the hook, telling him, “It was time to take it off; it was starting to bother my head.”

     Even among the youthful, the sick sense an obligation to mollify the well. But Andy could intuit the truth, one of dread, echoing the words I’m tired and haven’t much fight left.

     “It’s no wonder your head’s bothering you,” Andy said.

     Andy’s innocuous words of pragmatism were a meager alternative to crying I love you, please don’t die. Before the strain of helplessness and the feebleness of words became unbearable, he opened The Selfish Giant and began to read. Little Joe closed his eyes. For a while, all that mattered in a universe determined to betray him was the sound of Andy’s voice. When Andy finished, he set aside the book and said, “I’ll bet Cascade Park isn’t such a big deal.”  

     Little Joe’s eyes popped open. “Don’t you dare think of not going, Andy!” he cried. “It’s important that you go. If you don’t go, you won’t be able to come back and tell me all about it. I must hear all about it; promise me you’ll go.”

     “Okay, okay,” Andy cried. “I’ll go.”

     Little Joe’s face revealed confidence that he convinced Andy that attending Cascade Park was imperative, but his burst of vitality faded no sooner than it ascended. He returned to looking sallow and frail and stared blankly in the distance; his voice ranged from dreamy to wistful; it seemed to echo from another dimension. “I want to hear all about the Comet, Andy. It must be exciting to ride over a gorge, look straight up, and only see the sky from such a height; I bet it feels like flying. And don’t forget the lake, Andy. You must tell me all about the lake.”

     “I promise; I won’t forget any of it.”

     In a sudden burst of alacrity, Little Joe intoned, “I want to hear how Billy was too chicken-shit to ride the Ferris wheel and how Cynthia blasted him for it.” 

     For the first time since Andy entered the infirmary, a lighthearted moment and reflexivity of laughter were shared. Then Andy began rereading some of Little Joe’s favorite passages: And the tree broke at once into blossom, and the birds came and sang on it, and the little boy stretched out his two arms and flung them round the Giant’s neck, and kissed him. And the other children, when they saw that the Giant was not wicked any longer, came running back, and with them came the Spring. “It is your garden now, little children,” said the Giant, and he took a great axe and knocked down the wall. Andy read on until Little Joe’s eyes drooped shut. He closed the book and rose to leave. As his hand twisted the doorknob, he heard the weakly uttered words, “We’re just like real brothers, right, Andy?”

     Turning his gaze upon the hairless boy, Andy said, “You bet we are, Little Joe.” When making a second attempt to leave, Little Joe told Andy, “I had a dream.” Little Joe’s voice was distant, wraithlike; it emanated from someplace other than his frail form, or so it seemed. Andy let go of the doorknob. “I saw a meadow,” Little Joe continued. “It was peaceful, like Heaven; you would never want to leave. But you did leave, Andy. I know because…” Confusion assailed Little Joe. The quest for words became akin to patching together thoughts as if they were scattered puzzle pieces. “… because I saw you standing somewhere else; I can’t remember where.”

     Stammered words came forth in irregular intervals and were devoid of conviction. Then Little Joe’s voice faded to inaudible whispers, his mouth a mere crease, his lids fluttered, then shut. Andy held his hand and cried, “Little Joe, where was I standing? What was it you saw?” Andy squeezed Little Joe’s hand. Little Joe opened his eyes to slits and said, “Remember the lake, Andy. Remember the lake.” Again, Little Joe’s voice faded to a whisper before he lapsed into a slumber.

     Andy’s conscious mind repeated the waning moments of his and Little Joe’s encounter. He found it peculiar that Little Joe’s mouth creased to what appeared to be a smile when mentioning the lake. Or was it a smirk? Whichever, it was perplexing. Moreover, Little Joe seemed a ripe old sage owning wisdom, far-reaching and transcendental, that something imbued him with insights only achievable to someone near to death or so close that the mysteries of the universe began to unfold and reveal themselves. But which lake was Little Joe referring to before words became too great an effort: the one at Cascade Park or the one he dreamed of? Andy considered he might have imagined the smirk on Little Joe’s face and that Little Joe’s words marked the ramblings of someone semiconscious yet capable of extracting and describing visions.     

*****

     The day of the Cascade Park trip was an all-hands-on-deck affair. Along with Nurse Jackson, every matron and teacher made themselves available. Clayton Huey chartered three buses. The older orphans remembered their last trip to the park and prepared the younger ones. For some, it was their first time experiencing life away from the rambling acres of Saint Pete’s. They sat wide-eyed with anticipation, awaiting a bus to transport them into the world. The ride was exciting, as watching the world go by from a window was not a regular occurrence. Some sat with their faces pressed to a pane; others were too excited for the park and chirped for the entirety of the ride. Today would mark Maxi Brenner’s third trip to Cascade Park; he decided to ensure that Andy, his heavy heart notwithstanding, managed an enjoyable day. It was mainly due to Maxi that Andy had a day worth savoring; however, Andy could not report to Little Joe that Billy Bosworth was too “chicken-shit” to ride the Ferris wheel or, for that matter, any ride. Billy tore through Cascade Park with gusto; he led the charge throughout the day. He dashed to the Ferris wheel, urging on his mates, then bellowed to the operator, “How many orphans can this contraption hold?” Even Cynthia Suarez laughed, though, on general principle, whacked the back of his head and called him a nitwit before apologizing to the operator: “This is the consequence of letting him off the leash.”

     “She owns you, Billy,” Frankie O’Rourke taunted, though many of Saint Pete’s boys acquitted themselves as pets ruled by Cynthia’s wit and ambled about on leashes held by her delicate hand.

     “That’ll be the day,” Billy crowed before snapping, “And don’t you say a word, Raccoon!”   

     “I wasn’t gonna say anything!” poor Nicky Rincon, who never seemed to escape blame, protested.

     When through with the rides, the girls flocked to the dance pavilion, where a band tuned their instruments in preparation for a jam session. The younger girls sprawled on the lawn and listened while the older girls danced. Before long, Andy wandered away from the pavilion to the lake. Maxi, keeping an eye on him, followed. Maxi placed what he hoped would be a comforting hand on Andy’s shoulder and said, The lake makes for a nice view.”

     “Yeah,” Andy halfheartedly agreed.

     They stood by the lake, allowing a thoughtful silence to linger, watching the sunrays of early evening gleam upon the water’s surface. Before long, Andy asked, “Maxi, what do you think happens to us when we die?”

     Maxi put a hand to a chin that lately required a razor. He told Andy, “I wish I knew for sure what happens to every soul born into this world, but I don’t. But for kids like Little Joe, who suffer and don’t get their fair chance in life, I believe that God has a special place for them in Heaven, and He turns them into angels who guide humanity because they can understand better than anyone how truly precious life is. That’s what I believe.”

     Maxi’s theory of a loving God owning an exquisite affinity for lost children was satisfying; it helped Andy brighten, if only slightly. Andy couldn’t remember the last time he heard words worth embracing. It was no surprise the words came from Maxi.  

     Maxi gave Andy an affectionate pat and said, “Hey, kiddo, last I looked, Cynthia was dancing alone.” Andy sheepishly smiled when Maxi teased, “I know how you go for those older women.”

     The evening ride back to Saint Pete’s was as quiet as the morning ride was raucous; half the bus’s occupants were asleep no sooner than they took their seats. Despite the hour and his exhaustion, Andy was anxious to tell Little Joe all about his day once back at Saint Pete’s, but when he came dragging into the dorm, Little Joe wasn’t asleep in his cot. Andy’s sagging posture snapped to a state of erectness before he went tearing in the direction of the infirmary. In no time, Maxi’s longer legs caught up to him. “We’ll go together,” he said.

     They found Lucinda Hatch drained and haggard. The abruptness of their arrival did not surprise her. Before either Maxi or Andy managed a word, Lucinda told them, “His fever spiked mid-afternoon. I couldn’t control it. I called Dr. Krause. We both thought it best to have him transported to the hospital. I don’t suspect we’ll know anything until morning.”

     “How much longer does he have?”

     Maxi and Lucinda exchanged glances over a question posed with alarming directness. Andy was resigned to the fate of his friend.

     “I can’t say. But I imagine…” Lucinda stammered and choked back tears. She didn’t finish her words. There was no need. Maxi rushed to her side and eased her into a chair.

*****

Saturday, the twentieth day of June, with its cerulean sky and radiant sun, was a solstice worth bottling. And the breeze? Its calmness barely rustled the leaves. It was a perfect day for a band of exuberant orphans to divide themselves into teams and play kickball. But not every summer Saturday was intended for high-spirited youths to compete at games.  

     It marked a wearing day, the twentieth day of June—assuming the faces of the assembly accurately mirrored its spirit—the sort one hopes never will arrive, but once it does, many embrace it for its sole redeeming value: the comfort of a crowd. For the sake of this meager yet clung-to luxury that will dwindle with the dwindling day, there is a desire for the day to linger instead of passing swiftly as often does summer Saturdays. Those amid the gathering dread the arrival of the day’s end—a lingering slice of time waiting on the horizon whose primary function is to suffocate using the handy tools of contemplation and reflection.   

     It was mid-afternoon when the buses Clayton Huey chartered returned to Saint Pete’s. Many filed into the cafeteria; others didn’t favor confinement, choosing instead to spend the solstice wandering the rambling acreage. For many, a sense of disconnectedness prevailed. Among the disconnected, none—indoors or out—seemed sure what they should do, less where they should do it and thus became a mass of perfunctory movements owning no bearing aside from their collective benignity.

     Concerning the orphans of Saint Pete’s, the twentieth day of one of the calendar’s anticipated months marked an unwelcome break from protocol. The same could be said of the matrons, teachers, and nurses; no one seemed immune to the prevailing theme of disconnectedness that settled and stubbornly endured. Moreover, those on staff accustomed to leaving at the end of a given day entertained no such thought: Arms remained folded, hands stayed shoved into pockets, and legs ambulated to avoid inertia. Meanwhile, some brought to bear thoughts, hoping it would inspire others to do likewise and that a sense of reconciliation, however strenuously fostered the effort, would flourish.   

     A dense cluster of Oriental Lilies stood erect, many already blooming. Some stopped to admire them, and among the admirers, one uttered incredulously: “Seems just like yesterday a wedding took place here.”

     “My, how time flies,” added another.

     The sun began setting; many strollers of the rambling acreage headed indoors. Murmurs of numerous conversations echoed throughout the cafeteria. As the night wore on, the chatter became less strained and more animated; there were even instances when words of optimism rang in affable exchanges. After all, the summer solstice was upon them. Clayton and Ada Huey decided the night should take on whatever shape and size it sought and allow its collectivity to wane of its own accord. It ascended, at times buoyantly but mostly with pathos, until sorrow collided with exhaustion, resulting in numbness of mind and body. Saturday, the twentieth day of June, would know the meaning of surrender.

     Many of the younger orphans fell asleep no sooner than their heads touched their pillows; others lay awake pondering the day and how the world might have changed, if at all. Before long, Andy sat up, crept over to the light switch, and flicked it on. His action was greeted with mild protests: “Hey, who turned on the lights?” and “Come on, Andy, it’s making my eyes hurt,” and “Hey, kiddo, it’s been a long day, let’s just get some sleep.” But Andy, undaunted, was not about to let the twentieth day of June end until he had his say.

     Lucinda Hatch, who had just come from the other side of the orphanage after tucking in the girls, heard the protesting from down the hall. She went to see about the clamor and noticed light glowing through the door panes of the boys’ dormitory. Lucinda peered through the glass. What she witnessed stirred her to weep openly. With her back to the wall, she slid to a crouch, buried a teary face in her hands, and cried, “Dear God, please look after these boys, these wonderful boys.” 

     The scene Lucinda spied helped her forget her anger when, earlier in the day, the minister uttered the words: “Lay to rest, Joseph Haggerty.” No one ever referred to Little Joe as anything other than Little Joe. Today, surrounded by loved ones, Little Joe departed the world as Joseph Haggerty. With curiosity, the gathering gazed inward upon itself; its roving eyes and swaying heads silently cried, Joseph who? Lucinda alleged it made Little Joe’s departure from the world and the bosom of his loved ones impersonal. And why, she thought, frothing with disdain, would a seven-year-old need to be laid to rest?

     Andy sat on the edge of his bed, his hands gripping a book. Facing the bed where Little Joe once slept, he announced, “This was Little Joe’s favorite story. I think tonight would be a good time to read it.”

     The protesting ceased. Every boy sat up in his cot, tilted toward Andy, and lent an attentive ear as he began reading The Selfish Giant. Harold Goolsby was the first to kneel beside Andy and place a hand on Little Joe’s bed. Next came Nicky Rincon, Wally Kennedy, Matthew Horner, and Billy Bosworth. One by one, they gathered around, each reaching to place a hand on the bed where their Little Joe once lay. Andy read:

     “Climb up, little boy,” said the Tree, and it bent its branches down as low as it could, but the boy was too tiny.

     And the Giant’s heart melted as he looked out. “How selfish I have been!” he said. “Now I know why the Spring would not come here. I will put that poor boy on top of the tree, and then I will knock down the wall, and my garden shall be the children’s playground forever and ever.”

     Maxi Brenner and Frankie O’Rourke stood in the background, looking on admiringly at Andy. Before long, they knelt behind the other boys and stretched out their arms to envelope them. Andy continued:

     All day long they played, and in the evening they came to the Giant to bid him goodbye. “But where is your little companion?” he asked. “The boy I put into the tree?”

     “We don’t know,” answered the children. “He had gone away.”

     “You must tell him to be sure and come tomorrow,” said the Giant. But the children said that they did not know where he lived and had never seen him before; and the Giant felt very sad.

     Every afternoon, when school was over, the children came and played with the Giant. But the little boy whom the Giant loved was never seen again.

     Lucinda got to her feet. Again, she peered through the glass at Andy’s tribute to the darling of Saint Pete’s. Andy’s back was to the door, leaving Lucinda to look into the faces of those reaching and stretching to touch a part of something that once belonged to Little Joe. It warmed her heart to think what a gift it is to be so beloved and to have lived among these boys. In his life, during the good times and throughout his illness, Little Joe touched everyone. Tonight, they all huddled together to touch him.  

      Its branches were golden, and silver fruit hung down from them, and underneath it stood the little boy he had loved. Downstairs ran the Giant in great joy, and out into the garden. He hastened across the grass and came near to the child. And when he came quite close his face grew red with anger, and he said, ‘Who hath dared to wound thee?’ For on the palms of the child’s hands were the prints of two nails, and the prints of two nails were on the little feet.

     “Who hath dared to wound thee?” cried the Giant. “Tell me, that I may take my big sword and slay him.”

     “Nay,’ answered the child. “But these are the wounds of Love.”

     “Who art thou?” said the Giant, and a strange awe fell on him, and he knelt before the little child. And the child smiled at the Giant, and said to him, “You let me play once in your garden; today you shall come with me to my garden, which is Paradise.”

     And when the children ran in that afternoon, they found the Giant lying dead under the tree, all covered with white blossoms.

     The clock struck midnight; the twentieth day of June ascended to its climax.   

     The following morning, Maxi took a knee in the grass. Once all the boys gathered around him, he looked each of them in the eye and told them: “Remember the thrill that surged in him when his foot connected with the ball, the determination he summoned when running to first base, how hard he would dig for second and then third, and the joy that lit up his face when he reached home. As long as we’re here to remember him, Little Joe will always be home. Never forget that.”

     Maxi extended his hand. Those surrounding him reached for it. Then he said, “It’s summertime. Let’s play some kickball!”

     On the heels of immeasurable sadness, the orphans of Saint Pete’s did not play or compete perfunctorily, as one might expect, but with more gusto than ever. Midday came the familiar tolling of the iron bell. Activities ceased, and orphans marched their appetites toward the cafeteria. Andy’s walk to the cafeteria was deliberate. His eyes fixed on Ada Huey, clutching the rope. He dwelled not on the countless times the echo of pelting iron reached his ear but on the one day it did not.

Book VI

The Bridge to Tomorrow

Maxi Brenner appointed himself responsible for ensuring the boys had an enjoyable summer and that the most anticipated season supplied its usual portion of fun and freedom. Andy, Maxi’s number one admirer, filled the shoes of the older boy’s deputy and was quick to offer compassion whenever he noticed someone’s spirit dragging, and life carried on irrespective of what the universe had in store.

     In October 1971, on the same television sets Clayton Huey purchased for viewing the Apollo 11 landing, Saint Pete’s orphans watched the Pirates take The Series. Everyone’s hero, Roberto Clemente, homered in the seventh and deciding game and was named Series MVP. While jubilation rang throughout the orphanage, some spared a few moments to reflect upon a boy who once lived among them and walked with his head held high in a Bucs ballcap.

     The following year, the boys cheered wildly at what the world of sports dubbed “The Immaculate Reception.” The play saw Terry Bradshaw—faced with a fourth-and-ten from his own forty, with twenty-two seconds remaining in a game the Steelers trailed 7-6 to the Raiders—fire a pass to Frenchy Fuqua. The pass either hit Fuqua’s hands or Jack Tatum’s helmet (no one knew for sure), and the ball, before landing harmlessly in the grass, sealing the Steelers’ fate, was scooped up by Franco Harris and returned for a touchdown. The most improbable play gave the Steelers the most stunning victory in NFL history. Unfortunately, the cheering wouldn’t last long: A week later, on December 31^st31^st, while delivering aid to earthquake victims in Nicaragua, Roberto Clemente perished in a plane crash.

     A best friend and boyhood idol is a lot to lose. When in need of solace, Andy turned to Maxi and Lucinda. It was confusing for Andy and his fellow orphans, as a wide range of beliefs were shared concerning matters of life, death, faith, and God. No single theory ascended to a realm of overarching empiricism as to why an innocent boy beloved by all and everyone’s boyhood idol on an errand of mercy was taken. The question lingering on the minds of Saint Pete’s orphans: If an omnipotent force guided the universe, what was it trying to say? Theories aside, like an army devoid of impediments, life marched on. Then, one day, Lucinda told Andy, “My goodness, you’re growing like a weed! I don’t suspect it’ll be long before you’re as tall as Maxi!” 

     During this period of rapid maturation, aside from remaining Maxi Brenner’s chief admirer, a blossoming friendship with Cynthia Suarez became Andy’s social treasure. Cynthia’s penchant for sarcasm seemed an unlikely complement to Andy’s thoughtful demeanor, but in some ways, they were alike. For example, they devoured novels of adventure: tales of foreign lands, high seas, buried treasure, desperate journeys, heroes, and villains. Places fascinated them, particularly those of antiquity and faraway places with unusual names. They studied and drew maps, quizzed one another on countries and their capitals, and dreamed of traveling across oceans to the far-flung places they coveted.   

     Aside from his height, Andy’s other noticeable change was a developing obsession with running; he would run the interior perimeter of Saint Pete’s many acres for as long as it took his legs to weaken. Cynthia ran with him but only managed a full lap before quitting. But on Andy went, driven by an unrealized motivation. Harold and Nicky would call to him, “Hey Andy, why doncha come and play ball with us?”

     “Maybe tomorrow,” he would call back. The next day, he was back running. When he finished, his skin tingled; he felt more potent than when he started and brandished an alertness akin to an animal.

*****

     Unsettled would best describe Lucinda Hatch’s deportment when driving to McGillicuddy’s Pub for an impromptu lunch date. Lucinda had failed to keep in touch with colleagues from Pittsburgh and ignored her ten-year class reunion. After recognizing the voice at the other end of the phone, Lucinda summoned what little composure she had. Lucinda was inclined to tell the impromptu caller: I’d love to have lunch, but nowadays, work has me consumed, but there was a pulse, however subtle, in the caller’s timbre; it rang of desperation and proved enough to rouse Lucinda’s curiosity.

     “Lucinda, you seem out of sorts today,” Ada Huey observed.

     “I’m fine, Ada,” Lucinda intoned. “Truly, I am.”

     Ada arched a brow at a woman known to wear her heart on her sleeve, acting uncharacteristically aloof, but elected to let the issue pass unchallenged.

     As Lucinda drove up to McGillicuddy’s Pub, it came upon her, in a burst, what compelled her. Someone from her past—an old friend—reached for her. Years had disappeared; time was moving more swiftly. Lucinda realized she would lose all means of reconnecting with her past and its participants if she weren’t careful. Over the years, Lucinda learned through the breezes of marriages and children; it pained her to ponder that her occupation wasn’t a “true calling” but a way of insulating herself from a world she long ago wrote off as inaccessible. Lucinda was not unhappy, or so she alleged. Admittedly, she had insulated herself; thus, through self-awareness, she decided acquitting herself with gratitude for an impromptu phone call that caused her to fluster was a viable path forward.  

     “You look good, Lu. Haven’t changed a bit. I hear this place grills the best burgers in town. You’re not a vegetarian, are you? I hear it’s the ‘in’ thing nowadays. Do you still like your burgers with Swiss cheese and pickles?”

      Lucinda smiled from across the table at her lunch date; it surprised and delighted her that an old friend remembered trivial matters such as preferred burger condiments.

     “No one knows us like our old friends, Lu. I’m glad to learn you’re not a vegetarian. I have nothing against those who snub meat for philosophical reasons, just the ones who do because they think making certain claims about themselves keeps them in fashion.”

     Lucinda gestured to a waiter and said, “May we please see a menu?”

     “Your friend already placed an order.” Stammering, the waiter added, “But it would be no trouble to change it.”

     “That’s quite all right.” Lucinda glowered across the table at her lunch date and said, “Pretty darn confident I was gonna show?”

     “Or that you would show up good and hungry.”

     Whatever tensions existed eased. With mild surprise, Lucinda said, “Emma, I didn’t realize you lived in New Castle.”

     “We left Pittsburgh years ago—before you did, I believe. Once we became parents, Ted decided that my parents had become too meddlesome for his liking.”

     “How ironic,” said Lucinda.

     “How so?” Emma asked.

      “I took a job at Saint Pete’s Orphanage because I was desperate to be near children. I’m here in New Castle because I couldn’t get pregnant. You’re here because you did.”

     Both women grew pensive over irony as a virulent force that takes delight in its facility to influence life both individually and in aggregate. “One day, you’re standing on a road, about to embark on a journey, and with a plan. You can see everything on the horizon and where it’s plotted. Then, time performs nifty tricks, and damn if it doesn’t have an athlete’s agility.” Frowning paradoxically, Emma added, “What was once crystal clear becomes a great big muddle, and we must learn to reconcile each of us is but a single thread in a massive tapestry weaved by millions of striving hands, and we have little say in the outcome.”

     “So your theory is that we’re trapped in an artful piece of textile with countless competing threads, each with free will? God must be a fan of conflict and chaos, for surely it isn’t humanity we are weaving.”

     “I think God’s a practical joker, myself,” Emma glibly added.

     “I sit here, at my current age, single, childless, and with no prospects,” said Lucinda. “I guess I’m part of the punchline. Worse, I don’t need a cue to laugh; anytime would be appropriate.” 

     “A priest I know always reminds us: ‘Live the question. If you do it well, you may get an answer.’”

     “That reminds me of another adage: ‘The empiricist wrestles with what the poet professes to see.’ I’m afraid I lack the courage of the former and brilliance of the latter, so maybe it’s fitting that I’m a punchline.”

     With each passing moment, their words flowed more effortlessly. Then, somewhat whimsically, Emma blurted out, “I’m considering adopting a boy.” What seemed a moment of impulsivity followed Emma, unnecessarily patting her lips with a napkin. Before Lucinda, whose head jerked upward, could respond, Emma added emphatically, “I want to adopt a boy.”

     “But you’re still well within childbearing years,” said Lucinda.

     “You would think, Lu.” Emma’s gaze shifted downward; she began wringing her napkin. “My son, Timothy—he would have been nine years old this month—was stillborn. Imagine giving your son a name just so that you can bury him. Ted went to pieces and hasn’t been the same since. He always wanted a son, and I haven’t been able to conceive since Timothy.”

     “I’m sorry,” said Lucinda. “I didn’t know.”

     A strained silence ensued before Lucinda said, “Your daughter must be about twelve by now. That would make quite a gap between children.”

     “We weren’t considering an infant; fostering an older boy with the idea of eventually adopting was what we had in mind. Ted would love a son. And Karen? It would do her good to have someone around the house besides her parents with whom she could exchange ideas and collaborate. I remember all too well the loneliness accompanying being an only child; there’s only so much that friends can do to fill the void.”

     Lucinda frowned that her companionship had fallen short. Then, a faraway look came over her as Emma extolled the virtues and advantages of introducing a fourth party into her home. Lucinda was pondering something that gave her both pleasure and sadness.

     “Lu?” said Emma, sensing Lucinda’s thoughts were elsewhere.

     “I’m sorry, Emma,” Lucinda said. “I was just thinking about a boy.”

     “A boy from the orphanage?” Emma intoned.

     Lucinda nodded. “He’s wonderful,” she said and then repeated it.

     “Tell me about him, Lu. What’s his name?”

     “Smith. Andy Smith.”

     “Smith?” Emma had no reason to seem skeptical of an orphan boy named Smith, but doubt occupied Emma’s mien for reasons Lucinda couldn’t fathom.

     “It was the name given to him when found,” said Lucinda.

     “Found?” Emma’s eyes widened.

     “Yes, found.” Lucinda was annoyed by Emma’s show of surprise. What was an orphanage, if not a lost-and-found, a haven and refuge for the unwanted, the world’s lost children, needing love from people like me? “It happened two years before I arrived at Saint Pete’s. As the story goes, someone spotted him wandering outside the orphanage gates with a nametag taped to his shirt that read: My name is Andy. It was March 20th, the first day of spring. They guessed his age was two, but pinpointing the age of lost children is hardly an exact science. Anyway, right then and there, he became Andy Smith, born March 20th, 1962.”

     Year by year, beginning with the looting of spoons used to tunnel through the earth with an initiative of reaching China, Lucinda walked Emma through Andy’s childhood. By the time she was through recounting for her old friend Andy’s tribute to Little Joe, Emma was in love with this young man she hoped to meet one day soon.

     “Andy Trumaine. It has a nice ring to it. What do you think, Lu?”

     Lucinda’s eyes grew misty. She loved every child of Saint Pete’s but had a special place in her heart for Andy. Until today, Lucinda hadn’t considered the prospect of Andy leaving the orphanage. Like all orphans, he would age out one day, but not for years. Then, an unexpected reunion with an old friend arose, and before Lucinda finished her lunch, Andy had a new last name.

     “Lu?” said Emma.

     “I’m sorry,” said Lucinda. “Yes, it does have a nice ring.”

     Lucinda drove off. It thrilled her to think that Andy could have a chance to assert himself into the world through the bosom of a family, but a part of her wished she had said, I’d love to have lunch, but nowadays, work has me consumed.  

     Andy was numb, excited, confused, but mostly scared. The merging of dissimilar feelings drove him to run longer and harder; however, the strength and alertness that never failed to follow were negated by the world shifting beneath his feet. Moreover, after swiftly knifing through the bitter cold January winds, he was overwrought by a realization that felled him with unexpected bleakness.

     It had been nearly a year since Maxi Brenner aged out and moved on, as did Frankie O’Rourke. Andy missed them both, especially Maxi. What gripped his throat in the bitter cold was not sadness over those he missed but the vestiges of one nearly forgotten. He was less than three months shy of becoming a teenager or so said his assigned birth, which meant it was four-and-a-half years since Little Joe’s death—four-and-a-half years to a boy Andy’s age marked an eternity. In his mind’s eye was a vague image of an undersized boy in an oversized Pirates cap, an image that no longer had discernible features. Andy could still sense the joy Little Joe displayed when he crossed home plate with the game’s first run, but his mind’s eye had gone blind to Little Joe’s smile. We’re just like real brothers, right, Andy? If he lived a thousand years, Andy would never forget those words, but, in his head, he could no longer turn on the voice that uttered them.

      He knelt beside the withered stalks of Oriental lilies and wondered what else the passage of time would cause him to forget. So many years, so many friendships, so many memories; how would he remember them all? How would he sort them? He wiped away frozen tears and gazed at Saint Pete’s hardened wintery landscape. He tried to imagine what it would be like to wake up and not see Harold Goolsby and Nicky Rincon and to know a day without the companionship of Cynthia Suarez. He stayed kneeling by the withered stalks. Before long, he felt a gentle hand on his shoulder. The touch was familiar. He looked up and said, “I would never leave if he were still here.”

     “I know.” Lucinda joined Andy on the ground. “Andy, the sun has gone down,” she said. “It’s bitter cold. Andy…” Lucinda paused. She wanted to throw her arms around Andy and cry, I love you, but knew it would make goodbye more difficult. Instead, she told him, “We’ll be having dinner soon. You must be hungry after all that running. Come get warm and fill your belly.”

Book VII

 And Truth Melted His Wings, and He Fell to Earth

“Andy, you’re going to love it here! And wait until you meet my best friend, Candi; she’s the sweetest girl. I bet the two of you will hit it off famously. And then I’ll introduce you to the boys at school. They’re not all nice, but most are. We have a terrific school. I hope you have Mister Sloan for history. He’s the best. Everyone loves him!”

     On and on gushed Karen Trumaine. Emma cautioned her not to come on too strong—that it would be wise to hold herself in reserve and not overwhelm Andy, but once the spark of her enthusiasm ignited, there was no tamping it down.

     “Karen, dear,” Emma said, “you might consider giving Andy a chance to say something.”

     “It’s okay; I don’t mind listening.” True or not, for the moment, there was nothing Andy wished to say, and listening to Karen yammering over the virtues of her best friend, favorite teacher, and school was better than strained silence. Moreover, Karen had a sweet-sounding voice; it rang pleasingly in Andy’s ear.

     They rolled up to 18 Court Street. As he entered his new domicile, Andy received a greeting whose enthusiasm surpassed Karen’s, then stooped to pet Buddy, a well-toned English Foxhound.

     “Welcome home, Andy.” Ted Trumaine extended a hand. Andy readily accepted it. As his hand received a firm squeeze from the family patriarch, Andy realized three novelties occurred within minutes: he was a passenger in a car, walked into a private dwelling, and became the recipient of canine affection. However inconsequential, these matters of mundanity were signs the world had changed. It led him to ponder the more significant matters waiting on the horizon. One issue was clear: Andy could take comfort in a black, white, and tan-coated creature eager for his friendship.

     Karen, who had yet to wind down from what marked unprecedented novelty, took Andy by the hand and, mimicking a whirling dervish, whirled him through the house. “Come,” she cried, “I’ll show you where everything is.” Andy allowed himself to get dragged from room to room; Buddy followed at a pace behind.

     Though a petite creature displaying childlike innocence, gone was Karen’s youthful boniness; her edges had softened; the curvatures of womanhood were burgeoning. She flung open the back door, and all three spilled into the backyard.

     “I know these branches look terribly dead,” she said, “but come the spring, they’ll burst with color. That’s forsythia at each end, French Lilacs are next to the forsythia, and Cayuga Viburnum is in the middle. The Lilacs and Viburnum are fragrant.”

     Andy hadn’t any knowledge of Forsythia, Lilac, or Viburnum—they could just as well have been styles of evening gowns or infectious diseases—but did know a few words in French and that Cayuga was a county in Pennsylvania. He made a plausible effort to share Karen’s enthusiasm, but baseball and Pirates games were what he thought of when spring was in the air. Judging from the nature of her conversation and the ribbons adorning her golden-brown hair, Andy guessed baseball did not occupy a place on Karen Trumaine’s A-list.

     Back where they began—the parlor—Andy examined the many objects occupying the area. It all seemed so fluffy, plush, and inviting; patterns and splashes of color seemingly of some relation—a friendly space for an intimate gathering—reflected someone’s idea of what it means to be home. No object, texture, or color screamed “institution.” Andy reticently pondered, Why me? What made him so deserving, and not Harold or Nicky? The plague of an unanswerable question shattered when his eyes fell on a recliner, a piece matching the ensemble that appeared to have accommodated someone far more frequently than the others. It was but a matter of mild curiosity that everything in the room seemed preserved while the recliner was well-worn.

     “Come, Andy,” said Karen. “I’ll show you your room.”

     Andy went trailing after the excitable girl as she tore up the stairs; they were separated only by the length of the nimble Buddy. Karen flung open the door to a bedroom that would have belonged to Timothy Trumaine had he lived beyond the womb. Andy stepped inside, eyes drawn to a Pirates jersey spread neatly atop a bed. On the jersey was the number 21—a number that still belongs to, as it was retired, the late Roberto Clemente. Resting beside the uniform was a Pirates cap. Andy approached the bed with reverence and sat on its edge. He glided his fingertips over the jersey and brim of the ballcap, items symbolic of his early boyhood idol and dearest friend. When Andy held the cap, his mind, propelled by a slingshot, returned to the day he walked into the infirmary and saw Little Joe, his hairless head, cap held loosely by the tips of his fingers, and how Andy rushed to the side of his dying friend to rescue the cap from falling to the floor. Why was it so central, in that moment, that the cap did not reach the floor? Moreover, why, all these years later, did it still matter? Andy looked up and said, “Thank you, Sir,” to Ted Trumaine, whose form occupied the doorway.

     “You’re welcome, Andy. Wear them well.”

     “All right, let’s leave Andy alone for a spell, shall we?” said Emma, who, although eclipsed by Ted in the doorway, recognized Andy needed time alone with his thoughts.

     Emma, Ted, and reluctant Karen walked away, leaving Andy alone with his jersey, cap, and new black, white, and tan-coated friend.

     Occasions saw Andy taken from the confines of Saint Pete’s, but never for more than hours at a time. Not until his second day did it occur to him, he was out in the world for good and would miss Harold Goolsby, Nicky Rincon, Cynthia Suarez, and others. When his eyes scanned a region only before encountered from the windows of buses—nary had Andy an opportunity to experience with his own two feet the dimension of space between given points—it thrilled him, the air he was entitled to breathe and land he was free to roam; his spirit soared that, untethered, so much was possible; no longer would his running be confined to the grounds of an orphanage; he had a whole town, its paved streets and country lanes to explore.

     “Andy, I’m disappointed you don’t have Mister Sloan for history,” Karen moaned. “I wasn’t expecting every class together, but history would have been nice. I like history.”

     “Me too. But I’ll manage fine with Miss Watkins.”

     In his waning months at Saint Pete’s, if Andy was not running, he was busy sponging up knowledge: books of reference, novels, maps—his thirst bordered on the obsessive, and whenever he desired a perspective beyond the written word, there was always Maxi. Andy didn’t intend to sound cavalier when he told Karen it mattered naught who taught what and how, but his intonation offered a slight contradiction.   

     Andy kept an ear on Karen’s chattering but was more attentive, memorizing the bus route: the journey from school to 18 Court Street marked a potential running course. Once there, he leashed Buddy, frothing with bottled-up canine vigor, and out they went, trotting about town—a boy and a dog. “Make sure we don’t get lost, Buddy,” he cried. “I’m counting on you.”

     The hound proved reliable. Moreover, the prevailing lightheartedness within the house shifted when Ted rolled up in his Impala. The swing wasn’t dramatic but sudden: the temperature altered, bodies constricted, demeanors tensed, and what followed these palpable reactions was poise both hurriedly and shoddily contrived—one might describe the overarching mood akin to the nervous haphazardness assailing one awaiting an inspection. An outpouring of affection followed the latter, or sham, when Ted came through the door. Andy observed. When they assembled at the table for dinner, Ted said, directing his words at Karen, “Tell me all about your day.”

     Andy thought it absurd that Karen began with, “First, I walked with Andy to the bus stop.” She might as well have said I brushed my teeth or scratched a mosquito bite. Then, bit by inconsequential bit, Karen took Ted through her day, stopping at dinner. Andy watched her plate of food grow from hot to warm to room temperature as she yammered on, not leaving a single item unaccounted for. 

     Next, Ted turned his attention to Emma. After taking her rightful seat at the table as a wife, mother, and capable maker of the food Ted got to enjoy, Andy observed Emma reduced to a child. No one would mistake it for engaging how Karen and Emma reported to Ted on their respective days, though both mother and daughter made an effort, however strenuous, to make it seem so. Andy successfully prevented bewilderment from manifesting in his mien but couldn’t guess why this dinner-time exercise marked an imperative: no man, irrespective of alleged female cunning and fragility, could be so jealous or protective. At a minimum, it made for a quirky dinner hour. Moreover, Andy felt undeservedly entitled that the females had to eat in shifts while he and Ted enjoyed their food.

     The Edgar Thompson Steel Works, situated east of Pittsburgh on the banks of the Monongahela River, was the outfit that employed Ted Trumaine. The mill, named after J. Edgar Thompson—he held the title of President of the Pennsylvania Railroad until he died in 1874—was initially started by Andrew Carnegie and other partners and stockholders. It was not Ted Trumaine’s dream to spend his days motoring up and down I-79 and toiling in a steel mill. Growing up, Ted knew one ambition: to wear the uniform of his high school football team. His dream? That was far loftier; it was to brave the gridiron for his hometown Steelers. One out of two isn’t bad: Ted earned a spot on the varsity team, but not before getting cut as a sophomore. Ted went home and sulked. When his father, Ted Sr., asked, “Why the long face?” and Ted explained, the old man knocked the tar out of him.

     A Western Pennsylvanian, Ted Sr. was born the year the United States brought its troops home from World War I. By the time Senior was the age his son was when sulking over getting cut from the varsity, he found himself living through the toughest of times in the country’s harsher regions. With his family desperate for wages, Senior was ripped from school and handed tools to lay railroad tracks. Next came years in coal mines. By the time he reached adulthood, he had devoted all his days to laying track, mining coal, loading, unloading, hauling, and doing anything asked, for whatever wages an employer was willing to pay. The only time Ted Sr. didn’t ravage his body in trenches for low-end wages was when he said farewell to his pregnant wife for the lusher, denser, but more dangerous trenches in the Pacific rim of Southeast Asia. Thus, Ted Trumaine Sr. was short on sympathy for a boy who sulked over being denied an opportunity to play a game. Fortunately for the sophomore Ted Trumaine, Senior’s conversation was limited; when he spoke, it was often with his fists. Ted’s mother never interceded on his behalf; she was a timid soul, fearful of reprisal had she shown any inclination. Ted grew up hating his father and resenting his mother. Some days, the application of these encumbering emotions saw an inversion.

     “I take it you had a good day, Andy?” Ted posed the question in passing, like one unconcerned and confident of the answer.

     “Yes, Sir, I did,” Andy readily chirped.

     “Good,” Ted replied.

     And that was that: Andy was unsure whether to feel slighted or relieved that the control Ted Trumaine wielded over the women in his life did not extend to him. Whether his maleness or newness marked the prevailing factor, he couldn’t guess.

     Andy stole up from behind Karen the next day as she stood with friends awaiting the bus. He overheard Candi Holloway beam, “What’s he like? How’s it living with an orphan?” Andy silently chortled that he was assumed an oddity or another species. Before Karen could satisfy the curiosity of her excitable friend, Andy, whose presence Karen had yet to sense, spoiled the interview when he said, “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll walk home today.” The timely interpolation saved Karen from potential awkwardness. Not that she planned to utter words that would have required her to squirm from a clumsy encounter, but Andy figured it best to rescue her nevertheless. 

     “Our house isn’t around the corner,” Karen reminded Andy. “And you have all those books.” Andy nodded to acknowledge the principle behind relative distance and that what he had to shoulder could present a minor imposition but said affably, “I’ll see you home.”  

     “Wait!” Karen cried. Following a moment of hesitancy, she said, “I’ll walk with you.”

     As they turned to leave, they overheard Conner Livingston’s snide quip, “If Mister and Missus T. adopt him, I wonder if they’ll need separate papers for his ears.” The modest gathering, Candi Holloway aside, honored the remark with laughter.

     “Sorry,” said Karen. “Sometimes Conner can be a jerk.”

     “I knew someone like Conner once.” Andy frowned; for scathing as Billy Bosworth could be, he never made Andy’s ears the subject of a taunt.

     Journeying home, Andy took appreciable notice of Karen. His standard of “pretty” was Cynthia Suarez. Cynthia’s prettiness, although undeniable, within the walls of an orphanage, such matters as hairstyles and clothes fashion weren’t virtues that received judgment. Andy quickly learned that wasn’t the case beyond the walls of Saint Pete’s.

     What leaped at him was the dissimilarity of Karen when comingled with classmates: The hem of her skirt stopped well below her knees, and she was clad in a sweater concealing any hint of budding womanhood. Her lustrous, golden-brown hair hung in thick, loose waves, which she tastefully adorned with ribbons or bows, depending on her mood. Unlike her classmates, who had moved on to what some described as “rock-n-roll hair,” Karen remained hesitant to trade cuteness for coolness. She adhered to classic fashions in hair and dress, giving every impression of a young female milking girlhood rather than one in a hurry to become a teenage vixen.

     “Do you have a favorite author?” Karen asked, sensing it was a subject likely to keep them busy and avoiding a strained silence.

     “I suppose whoever writes your favorite book becomes your favorite author,” Andy told Karen. “Since Huck Finn’s my favorite novel, Twain’s my favorite author.”

     “I haven’t read Huck Finn but would like to,” Karen chirped.

     “I saw the words adventure in the title and checked it from the library. When I was done, I had more questions than answers and talked to Nurse Hatch about it. She encouraged me to reread it. It was clearer after a second whirl, but I wouldn’t mind a third.”

     “Maybe we could get a copy and both read it,” said Karen. “Then, when we’re through, we could talk about it.

     “I’d like that,” said Andy. His agreeableness soured when beset by the notion he had just replaced Cynthia Suarez. But what did that have to do with Karen? She was innocent. Andy recovered and asked, “Would you like me to carry those books for you?”

     Karen stopped, slumped, and gasped, “I thought you’d never ask.”

     “It’s the least I could do since you were kind enough to keep me company.”

     “Yeah, about all this walking, Andy? If it’s all the same to you, I’ll ride the bus tomorrow.”

     Andy dropped off both sets of books, leashed Buddy, and together they trotted through town. Back home, he dashed to his room and examined his reflection. He gave a slight turn to the left and another to the right. Upon frowning like one might when conceding the obvious, he said of his ears, “They are kinda big.”

     Friday and all its weekend anticipation arrived. The bus ride home was clamorous. For the sake of the rain, Andy endured the trapped noise produced by his new boisterous peers. The rain persisted. Poor Buddy—he had grown accustomed to his new routine and waited for Andy by the door—made all the chaotic gesticulations and sounds typical of a hound anxious for an entitlement. “Sorry,” Andy said, demonstratively shrugging in reply to Buddy’s whimpering. It was when Buddy ceased whimpering and appeared a creature utterly forsaken that Andy thought: what the heck, it’s only water. He borrowed Ted’s raincoat. He and Buddy galloped through the chilled wintery rain. 

     Friday night’s dinner consisted of pork chops, mashed potatoes, and string beans. Accompanying the food was the usual inane conversation, supplied by Karen andEmma and orchestrated by Ted, The Ringmaster. As he did every Friday following dinner, The Ringmaster collapsed in his recliner, where he eagerly awaited The Six Million Dollar Man, accompanied by a newspaper and bottle of beer. When the show was about to air, Emma brought him a second bottle and removed the first. When the show concluded, Ted returned to his newspaper until it came time for Kolchak: The Night Stalker.

     Ted Trumaine was no stranger to laborious days. His recliner, newspaper, beer, and favorite television programs collaboratively represented his Friday night refuge. Often, The Ringmaster would drift off to sleep in his recliner, beer at his side, newspaper spread about his lap. Andy, who had been watching Kolchak: The Night Stalker right along, had difficulty hearing above the thunderous snores of the man he came to call “Sir.” Meanwhile, Karen spent the night in her room, devouring the recently purchased pages of Huck Finn. When the show ended, Andy stood, towering over the snoring man, and wondered whether it was prudent to wake him, turn off the television, or both. He elected to do neither, tiptoed up the stairs, and climbed into bed. When he tugged on the blanket, to his delight, he discovered his bed was a sanctum to be shared. Buddy laid his snout on his shoulder. Before long, both boy and canine were asleep.

     Come morning, Andy’s eyes popped open at seven. He dressed, crept down the stairs, and discovered no one had yet to stir, including Buddy, who, sometime during the night, opted for the mat outside Karen’s bedroom door. Andy crept through the house and into the backyard. The cold and gray morning made the already dormant branches of the forsythia, lilac, and viburnum appear more lifeless. Andy shivered in the cold and wondered, Who are the Trumaines? How was he supposed to feel about them? Was he still an orphan? They marked confusing questions for someone not settled in the present and disconnected from the past. The companionship of Buddy and Karen diving into Huck Finn days after they bonded over a hike home, provided some equilibrium. He shivered, then returned to the kitchen, where he discovered Emma brewing coffee.

     “You’re up early,” she chirped. “I thought those hormones were supposed to keep you in bed ‘til ten.” 

     Before long, Ted appeared. Come ten o’clock—the hour pubescents, according to Emma, broke the hormonal stranglehold that kept them pinned to their mattresses—there was still no sign of Karen.

     “Should I go knock on her door?” Andy asked.

     “No!” Emma apologized for snapping, then stammered, “S-Sometimes she has whatcha call… ‘a down day.’ We should let her be.”

     It was unclear to Andy what Emma meant by the measured words, a down day. He figured it prudent not to ask. What was discernible was the malignance in Ted’s glare as it fell on Emma.

     “Would it be okay if I go out?” Andy asked. His eyes shifted back and forth between Ted and Emma in a room that had grown strangely tense.

     “Of course,” said Ted. The patriarch’s mien relaxed to a state of affability. “You’re not a prisoner.” Ted was exceedingly agreeable in doling out his reassurance of Andy’s status; it meant to impress upon Andy: There’s the door; the world is yours to explore. Andy stood at the landing of the stairs and saw Buddy curled up on the floor in front of Karen’s closed bedroom door. “Guess I’mflying solo,” he said, and off he went, venturing further out than he had on any previous gallop with Buddy. He found himself on Banks Bridge, a covered structure that spanned Neshannock Creek. Ambling along the creek, it astonished him when pondering how narrow a period had elapsed since Lucinda Hatch consoled him while kneeling in the cold beside the withered stalks of Oriental lilies. Time can be illusory, an element capable of playing tricks. He imagined weeks had gone missing, for that time of poignancy, weeping in the biting cold with Lucinda seemed ages ago. Lucinda acquainted Andy with the sensation known as feeling loved. On a cold, gray day, walking alone by a lonely creek, he longed to see her, to hear her voice. It drove him to weep.  

     He did not return to 18 Court Street until the late afternoon. Still, there was no sign of Karen. Why, he wondered, would anyone confine themselves to a cloister after being cooped up in classrooms? Dinner, which was short on conversation, inane or otherwise, happened without Karen, as did the remains of the evening. Not until morning (Sunday) did she reappear. Her presentation suggested an absence never occurred, its length unnoticed. Emma and Ted acted unfazed by Karen’s vanishing; they acquitted themselves as naturally as if it were any other morning. Andy judged their behavior as peculiar as the disappearance itself. Still, Andy was glad for Karen’s company. After breakfast, Karen said to Andy, “I liked the symbolism of the raft. As long as Huck, Jim, the king, and the duke remained on the raft and didn’t go ashore, where society could define them, they could be happy.”

     “Sounds like a heck of a concept for a novel,” Andy ironically replied.

      “Harydee-har,” intoned Karen, and matters returned to normal.

     Winter made a reluctant departure to a determined spring. Andy became a teenager. Days later, Karen followed. One mid-April Saturday, Andy woke just at sunrise; he had developed a fondness for the smell of morning and greeting the birds and other creatures that made the backyard a sanctuary. He jumped into his clothes, crept down the stairs, and wound his way through the house and into the backyard, only to discover that the ambition of another caused him to be second.

     “God was kind enough to grant us this rich and fertile earth, so it’s only right we honor His generosity by taking good care of it,” Emma told Andy. “Besides, what could be lovelier than watching the earth come alive with color?”

     Andy liked Emma’s words. The explanation for why she worked her delicate hands in the soil inspired Andy; it prompted him to kneel beside her with the offering, “I’ll help.” He did: that day and in subsequent days, side-by-side, from their knees, Andy and Emma worked the earth. Andy also took over the lawn care for Ted. Helping Ted had a different vibe, like one working to earn a place at the table. Helping Emma was a matter of Andy wanting to be near her; Emma possessed a vulnerability reminiscent of Lucinda.

     The calendar flipped to May. Friday nights, Ted no longer awaited The Six Million Dollar Man and Kolchak: The Night Stalker; it was baseball season, and all matters, to Andy’s delight, took a backseat to the Pirates. Andy sat and watched the Bucs with Ted, and The Ringmaster, with pomposity typical of a know-it-all, explained the game’s finer points. Andy didn’t require much explanation but resisted hinting as much. Instead, he listened politely but couldn’t help thinking Maxi’s “inside baseball” clarifications were more lucid. Moreover, no one needed to endure a note of haughtiness when calling upon Maxi. Nevertheless, Andy was grateful the Pirates took precedence in a household that featured one television.

     “For crying out loud, Kison couldn’t strikeout his grandmother tonight!” Ted, lurching forward in his recliner, bellowed.

     The vigor with which Ted lambasted the Bucs’ starting pitcher caused Andy to shrink in his seat. Andy also frowned that the Phillies brought their lumber to the stadium, peppering the Pirates for nine runs in the first six innings. Across the room, between wearing himself out from agitation over a game that failed to live up to his expectations and the beer he consumed, The Ringmaster, during the seventh inning, nodded off in his recliner. With thunderous snores passing for company, Andy witnessed a furious late-inning comeback that fell short by a run.

     Saturday came and went with no peep or glimpse of Karen. Andy was settling into this new place called home, but not without reconciling a few quirks alleged beyond the scope of what one might expect. The present Saturday marked the third since Andy seeped into the bosom of 18 Court Street that saw Karen remain hidden in her bedroom—her sanctuary. If not qualifying as an oddity, all three occasions followed nights Ted dozed in his recliner. A happenstance? Perhaps, but there were other elements to the equation: Buddy, who had become Andy’s shadow, curled up on the floor outside Karen’s bedroom door; Emma, the essence of warmth, assumed a deportment of aloofness, while Ted busied himself with odd jobs of little consequence; if Ted wasn’t tinkering, he was on his way to buy the necessary materials to tinker. Andy grappled with the notion that something conspiratorial was afoot, but there seemed to be but one overarching factor: Karen. Assumed fragility notwithstanding, did Karen’s whims and moods rule the domain? However unimposing her bearing seemed, did Karen own the capacity and propensity to manipulate or, through tacit authoritarianism, beget others to bend to her will? It seemed inconceivable. But if Karen wasn’t the explanation, the bizarre pattern was an enigmatic mishmash. Moreover, like the other affected Saturdays, Andy was alone and friendless.

     He meandered along Neshannock Creek until he reached Banks Bridge. Today, he felt bold enough to cross and explore the other side. He turned north onto a dirt road. Before long, the road divided. He followed the spur to the right until it came to a circular pool from which men fished. He sat nearby on a rock, his patience equal to three men whose lines were dipped in the water. He was not unappreciative of a sport whose core principle blended serenity and endurance. After witnessing a catch, thus discovering the limits of his untested patience, he doubled back to Banks Bridge. What caught his eye was a cornfield visible beyond a break in the woods across the road.  

     He likened a cornfield to a universe where a person could get lost for hours if daring to penetrate its core. Thus, he infiltrated a universe of tall flora; several yards, he breached, then lay in a row and gazed skyward. It fascinated him to view the world’s ceiling with his back to the ground, walled in by tall stalks; it shrunk the sky to a narrow strip with a dual horizon and loaned a cerulean hue additional vividness, and as he lay on the ground toying with a new source of fascination, he thought to himself, the Trumaines, oddness aside, aren’t so bad. Andy had developed a genuine affection for Emma—a God and nature-loving woman whose gentle soul made her, in Andy’s judgment, a mismatch for Ted—and valued the time he spent beside her, their hands in the earth.

     “I know the rabbits will eat many of my lilies no sooner than they bloom,” Emma told Andy the day they worked to propagate them.

     “Won’t that upset you?” Andy asked.

     “We have the good fortune of living in comfortable shelters. These delicate creatures must survive outside, often in harsh conditions. Yes, it thrills me to watch my humble corner of the world come alive with color after a long winter, but I’d see it eaten to the ground before I’d see an animal meet its death due to starvation.” Emma paused for a spell. Andy thought Emma migrated to another subject when she told Andy, “Often the story of St. Martin and the Beggar comes to my mind. It helps bring me back into balance and reminds me of how we should act and treat one another.” Emma recited the story. It was clear to Andy the parallel between the beggar, Jesus, and the rabbits who filled their bellies with the labor of a woman whose benevolence was her foremost trait. More and more, Emma reminded Andy of Lucinda; thus, 18 Court Street became an annex to his concept of home.

     “Shall I fill the bird feeder?” Andy asked since caring for delicate outdoor dwellers became the overarching theme.

     In warm seasons, many fill feeders to draw birds to their habitats (backyards) to enjoy birdwatching. Emma’s concern was the survival of non-migratory birds enduring a northeast winter. “It’s in the harsher seasons when there’s nothing left on the trees and shrubs that birds need food,” she told Andy. “For now until November, nature provides plenty. In other words, we should consider the birds, not our amusement.”   

     It’s fair to say that Andy had grown quite fond of Emma. It would be unfair to suggest he was unfond of Ted—Andy and Ted got along fine, to be generous—but between them settled a mildly palpable vestige of strain, which both learned, cleverly, to ignore. Unless there was something specific to discuss or a shared interest, such as a Pirates game, in coexisting, Ted and Andy were synergistically deprived. Moreover, despite Ted’s controlling ways not extending beyond the women in his life, there were other subtle aspects to his persona, none of which Andy could clearly define, that warned him he should be wary.

     Despite her mysterious Saturday withdrawals, Andy had warmed to Karen. Karen’s intellect was a steady presence Andy valued. Moreover, being orphaned, Andy found it comforting that the wholesome and simplistic stirred Karen: ribbons and bows placed in her hair, the freshness of her face when it beamed like a child’s because she saw a rose, a rainbow, or sniffed cornbread in the oven—there were many aspects of Karen Trumaine into which Andy could safely dive.   

     “What was the music you played in your room earlier?” Andy had asked Karen.

     “A piece by Schubert. Mother listens to Schubert, so I thought I might also learn to like him. It turns out I do.”

     “Maybe sometime I could listen?”

     Karen’s response was to nod feebly. The implication was clear: her room was a sanctuary into which she was unprepared to grant entry.  

     As Andy lay in the cornfield, gazing skyward, the sun’s warmth kissing his face, he imagined, not too far away, Harold Goolsby and Nicky Rincon organizing a kickball game. The wistful affection of days gone by can pelt like gentle rain. It can also sting. Andy recalled the last time Harold and Nicky asked him to play and how he put them off. “Maybe tomorrow,” he called to them as he continued running. But tomorrow rained, the winter came on fast, and now Andy lay weeping over a squandered opportunity.

     The earth turned, placing the sun directly above Andy’s row; it stung his eyes. He considered relocating to another section of the cornfield but closed his lids to narrow slits instead. Before long, the sun and its pleasing aspects lulled him into a midday slumber.

     The earth kept turning until the sun had set and yielded to the night sky. Seized by disorientation akin to what one experiences when waking with no memory of falling asleep, was Andy’s state. He emerged from his slumber, hazy concerning his whereabouts and the day. After all, how often does one close their eyes to sunshine and wake in darkness, nestled in a cornfield? During his first groggy moments, what washed over him was the sensation he was somewhere on the rambling acreage of Saint Pete’s. When his eyes fully opened, he sprang to his feet. Where was the sun? Panic ensued; it caused him to stagger into a cornrow and flatten several stalks.   

     He trampled more stalks in his haste to steady himself, but his concern was not over trampled corn but how to explain his lengthy disappearance. He came bursting from the cornfield willy-nilly, a whirling dervish feeling his way to Banks Bridge. Equanimity was in short supply but eventually prevailed with the aid of forceful lungsful of night air. When he slinked through the door at 18 Court Street, Emma sank into a chair, let loose a sigh worthy of the occasion, and made the sign of the cross on her head and chest. It was not until Andy was through gushing with contrition that he realized someone was missing from the scene, and it was not Karen; her absence was a given. He swallowed nervously and asked, “Where’s Ted?” 

     Grimacing, Emma told Andy, “He’s been driving all over town looking for you.”  

     Being made aware he had twenty-four hours to live would not have caused Andy’s viscera to churn so violently as it had when learning Ted Trumaine was out combing the streets of the town on his behalf. Finding a hole into which to crawl seemed a sober proposition, for Andy figured the longer Ted searched the streets, the angrier he would be when he returned. It prompted him to pray for Ted to walk through the door in the next second or get sucked into a black hole. One matter, he reconciled a given: Ted’s controlling ways would extend beyond the women in his life.

     A second passed, followed by several hundred more, before Ted, who did not fall victim to a cosmic event horizon, walked through the door, grumbling, “I don’t know where the hell he is.” Andy rushed to the side of the agitated man and explained what had happened. The result? If Andy learned anything from this Saturday, other than Karen keeps to her room, commotion notwithstanding, irrespective of how well one alleges to know another, they can still do the unexpected.

     Andy assumed Ted had consumed his customary Saturday alcohol and that Ted would do to him what he wanted to do to Kison the night the Bucs pitcher surrendered a hit parade to the Phillies, which was to ring his neck. Ted did not even levy a reprimand. He calmly told Andy, “Since the day you arrived, you’ve shown yourself a model citizen, not the type to do anything wrong, deliberately. You’re home, safe; let’s leave it at that.”  

     Poised and affable was how Ted approached Andy. When through, The Ringmaster’s eyes fell upon Emma. Ted’s mien revealed a veil of smugness that, in some way, it being skullduggery, he had prevailed. But what had Ted gained? Defeat and resignation registered in Emma. The lids of her eyes fluttered and then closed. Ted and Emma’s tacit exchange did not go undetected. Nevertheless, Andy retired to his room, taking little inference with him.   

     Karen, as per usual, joined Sunday’s breakfast, pretending her vanishing act went unnoticed, preserving the most puzzling aspect of an alleged mystery. Emma’s and Ted’s pretending added to the farce. So perplexing were the Trumaines, but who was Andy—an unleveraged soul, an orphan plucked from an institution and introduced modest privilege—to dare probe? But curiosity can only mount so long without effort, giving rise to satisfaction or hoping that someone doles out satisfaction in some measure. Andy decided it was prudent to wait until he and Buddy were alone with Karen in the yard. Andy expected Karen’s explanation to be bizarre, as the reason, assuming she was truthful, must also be bizarre.   

     “Why’d you stay in yesterday; you weren’t sick, were you?” Andy didn’t mention Karen’s bedroom. Moreover, he stressed “yesterday.” He did not want Karen to think he was monitoring her behavior; an interrogative or accusatory tenor could engender aloofness in Karen and set the tone for a miserable day. 

     “The Cayuga Viburnum is blooming!” Karen dashed to the base of the yard, buried her nose in one of the shrub’s globelike, creamy blossoms, and inhaled deeply, her nostrils drawing in the sweet fragrance, causing her mouth to crease into a smile and her eyes to flutter. As confident in gravity was Andy that Karen heard his words—they resonated like an innocuous entreaty—but pretended not to. His curiosity would go unsatisfied; Andy would have to back away. Whatever instigated Karen’s self-banishment—external or internal influences—was a matter whose unbroachable nature was affectingly tacit and glaring. Worse, what stood ostensible at one end of the hierarchy was equally apparent at the other—a scenario that relegated a peer hoping to become a confidante decidedly on the periphery. After some urging, Andy also took the blossom in his hands and drew its fragrance into his nostrils. He found the sweet scent and delicate petals kissing his skin pleasing. He grazed the silky petals over his chin repeatedly. It delighted Karen that Andy was open to simple pleasures.   

     The school year was winding down. The notion of an idle summer didn’t appeal to Andy; he took the lawnmower, which he had been putting to good use at 18 Court Street, and lined up work.

     “Don’t forget to use me as a reference,” Ted told him.

     Andy mainly got by on his own merits as a salesman. He pulled his trump card when he sensed a prospective customer about to vacillate. “You take care of Ted Trumaine’s lawn, do you? All right then,” said one man. “What’s that, you say; you’re that boy Ted Trumaine took in? Sure, you can cut my grass,” said another. Indeed, The Ringmaster was not without charm. Andy lined up nine jobs in all. When first handed cash, he headed straight to the drugstore and purchased as many packs of baseball cards as he could shove into his pockets. Andy had overheard schoolmates boasting about their card collections. No one housed in their heart more passion for the Bucs or love for baseball than Andy.

     Right up until the last day of school, books jiggling in his backpack, Andy ran home. On days the spring rains made running unadvisable, others predictably harassed him with taunts: “And to what do we owe the pleasure?” Or, “What’s the matter, Andy; afraid you’re gonna melt?” Rain or shine, Buddy waited for Andy by the front door. Andy endured the rain for Buddy’s sake. The harder it rained, the faster they galloped—faster and faster until hound and human opened to a full sprint with Andy looking skyward and yelling to the Heavens, “Is that all you’ve got! What’s the matter; no hail on the menu!” Winded more from castigating nature, Andy dropped to a knee. The hound put his paws atop his shoulders; thus, they engaged in a soaking wet embrace, these two species with a mutual passion. Saturday mornings, Andy rose at seven, leashed Buddy, and away they would go. Typical of an English Foxhound, Buddy could run all day, maintain the same pace, and not tire—just like Andy. Then came those anomalous Saturday mornings; Andy would wake to Buddy curled outside Karen’s bedroom door.  

     Andy made no assertive attempts to venture into social circles at school. Moreover, his reticence failed to inspire invitations. When on a romp with Buddy, he wasn’t keen to seek additional companionship. For the time being, Andy was satisfied with Karen, Buddy, or both, though oftentimes Karen came as part of a package: Candi Holloway. While Karen, admittedly, was given to bouts of chattiness, and often it amused Andy, Candi could unleash an avalanche of verbiage capable of overwhelming the most attentive listener and seldom what gushed Andy found worth capturing. When looking at what was in store for him in summer, he pounded the pavement, searching for additional work. 

     Andy returned from his morning romp with Buddy on the first Saturday of summer and told Karen, “It’s a crime to spend a minute of today indoors. No reading Agatha Christie or watching The Price Is Right; let’s have an adventure!”

     “A what?” The word made Karen wary.

     “And adventure; exploring and doing things that are exciting and unpredictable….”

     “I know what an adventure is, Andy.”

     “How about it?” he urged. “I know some exciting places we can visit on our journey.”

     “I bet,” Karen intoned.

     Reluctantly, Karen called Candi and informed her: “I’m being kidnapped. Send out a search party if I’m not back before dinner.” She hung up the phone and asked Andy, “These ‘exciting places’are along the way to what destination exactly?”

     “If I told you that, it would spoil the adventure.”

     “Something tells me that’s code for ‘we’ll be roaming for hours.’”

     “Where’s the ol’ Huck Finn spirit?”

     “That’s your go-to for inspiration? Huckleberry Finn?”

     “Is it working?”

     “Just bear in mind, I’m no Foxhound.”

     At Neshannock Creek, Andy told Karen, “We’ll take Banks Bridge on the way back. For now, let’s use the stones.”

     “You’re a real Boy Scout, I see.”

     Crossing a creek, one carefully placed foot at a time, was more than Karen bargained for. Once she finished complaining that the effort might spoil her shoes, she acted like a good sport.

     “The key to keeping your shoes nice is not falling in the creek,” Andy explained.

     “Thanks, champ,” said Karen. “I’ll bear it in mind.”

     Across the creek, they wound their way through the woods using the path that led to Andy’s cornfield. “You’re right,” Karen admitted once they lay down in the same row with the tops of their heads touching, “it’s nice to look up at the sky this way.

     “Just up the road is where men fish. If you stand on the rocks and look down, you can see the different kinds darting through the water.”

     “I don’t like fishing!” Karen protested.

     “You like it when your mom makes Mrs. Paul’s Fish Sticks,” Andy reminded Karen.

     “That’s hardly the same thing. And besides, I’m not fond of the way fish get caught. They’re tricked. They think they’re getting a juicy meal and instead end up with a steel hook in their mouth. Try and imagine how that must feel.”

     “I bet you’re the first person ever to sympathize with fish. But while we’re on the subject of killing for our food, we eat chicken, too, you know.”

     “That’s different. One quick swipe of a cleaver and a chicken is dead before it knows what hit it. But fish? They dangle from hooks, can’t breathe, and die slowly from suffocation while thinking how they’ll never swim again. Chickens live in coops. That’s worse than living under a communist dictatorship; killing them is a kindness when considering how they live. Besides, if chickens were a protected species, the world would have as many chickens as insects before long. Imagine a world with more chickens than we could feed. Chickens would become predators, and who knows what a world with predatory chickens would be like? But fish? They live a life similar to Americans: they can swim freely in oceans, lakes, rivers, and streams, with nothing but Nature telling them what they can and can’t do. In other words, they’re like birds, only in water; killing them should be a sin.”

     Not expecting the conversation to dive to such depths, Andy clownishly griped, “But I like it when your mom makes fish sticks.” Andy was fearful Karen, exploiting political theories and doctrines as they may apply to all living creatures, would try to persuade her mother to have fish, in sticks and other forms, stricken from the menu.

     “I guess I like fish sticks, too,” she painfully admitted.

      “So we can watch the men fish?”

     “Just let me know when someone gets a bite so I can turn away; I don’t wanna see anything dangling.”

     The issue of fish was put to rest. They lay quietly, gazing skyward. Before long, Karen asked, “What was it like?… You know…”

     “Growing up in an orphanage?” Andy mercifully added. He had wondered when Karen would get around to asking. Curiosity concerning such a matter was natural. Often, Karen’s interest was visible. Andy was inclined to propose a trade—the reason behind Karen’s Saturday disappearances, in exchange for knowledge about growing up in an orphanage—but thought better of it. What right had he to bargain with Karen? It was hardly her idea to go adventuring, thus ambushing her a distance from home, especially since she had shown herself a good sport, would show poor taste if not brutish. 

     “I can’t speak for all orphanages, but at Saint Pete’s, no one ever had to ask, ‘Please, Sir, may I have some more,’ because there was always plenty. And there were acres to romp around. We played various games, mostly kickball.” Pridefully, Andy gushed over the virtues of Saint Pete’s. Then, his voice trailed away; his demeanor revealed somberness. “It’s funny,” he said. “I can remember all the smells and sounds, especially the sound the iron bell made, but I can’t turn on his voice in my head.” 

     Karen intuited Andy was no longer speaking to her but thinking aloud. “What bell, Andy?” she wanted to know. Karen’s inquisitive tenor brought Andy back to the cornfield.

     “Missus Huey,” he began. “She used to ring this huge, iron bell by pulling a rope; it was the signal that recess ended and, on the weekends, lunchtime. And did we ever play some exciting kickball games?” he intoned

     “Do you ever miss it?” Karen asked.

     “Sure,” Andy readily admitted. “I suppose whenever you leave a place, there’ll always be things you miss, like old friends. I miss Harold Goolsby, Nicky Rincon, and Cynthia Suarez. Like you, Cynthia is pretty and smart.” 

     Andy, immersed in thought, was unaware he had paid his first compliment to a girl. Karen, who was attentive, beamed when receiving her first compliment from a boy. Karen fixated on Cynthia Suarez; she wanted to learn all there was to learn about a girl who, in Andy’s judgment, was her equal in beauty and intelligence. After moving on from Cynthia, Karen asked, “Whose voice is it that you can’t remember?”

     “His name was Little Joe.” The solemnity in Andy’s tenor moved Karen. “That’s all any of us ever called him. He was my first and best friend. He used to say that we were like real brothers. He died years ago. It seems like forever. It’s getting harder to remember things that happened so long ago.”

     “Maybe you need to talk about them with someone so you won’t forget. We could come here, to this very cornfield, and you could tell me what you remember about Little Joe, and perhaps the more you talk and hear your memories aloud, the more you’ll remember.”

     It warmed Andy that this lovely yet bewildering creature encouraged him not to discard his past in favor of the present—that honoring days at Saint Pete’s in no way dishonored 18 Court Street. Before long, Andy reminded Karen of the fish. Karen launched herself into a sitting position, swiveled to face Andy, and intoned, “I see some matters we have no difficulty remembering.” 

     After peeling himself off the ground and about to exit the cornfield, Andy reached for Karen—he gripped her shoulder and held her in place—and began brushing away dirt that stuck to the back of what started the day a freshly primped blouse. It was an innocuous action requiring no interpretation, yet it sent Karen twisting violently. The force and suddenness of her agility astounded Andy. Karen appeared to swell and stretch to a size larger than her person—the effort was akin to a cornered animal attempting to discourage a threat—and her eyes widened and glossed with primordial rage and fear. What followed her guarded aggression was her shrieking, “Stop!” Karen appeared to have no recognition of Andy; she glowered at him as one might a malefactor. Next, in the time it would take to bat an eye, Karen grasped the brutality of her overreaction. Her arms, which had assumed a defensive posture, brought her hands to a shame-reddened face; it marked a sentient action hastening a hideous cry echoing the reflexiveness of shock and poignancy of atonement. The sudden burst of awareness sent Karen fleeing from the cornfield, knocking Andy aside as she went.   

     If Karen’s disappearing acts weren’t enough to baffle Andy, this latest episode was the clincher. He got to his feet and staggered like someone unaware of what hit him. “Maybe I should stay out of this damn cornfield,” he grumbled. “I have no luck here.” He chased after Karen; he needed to grasp what transpired and why. Moreover, he didn’t want Karen reaching 18 Court Street crazed, hysterical, and alone. He slogged through the cornfield to the dirt road. His swift legs caught up to Karen on Banks Bridge, winded, bedraggled, leaning over the rail, and staring into the water.

     “I’m sorry,” she cried, weepy, breathless, eyes fixed on the water as she was too ashamed to face Andy. “I don’t know what got into me back there. I can’t explain it. I just can’t!” Nor did Andy press for an explanation. He had one aim: to bury any ill-temper before arriving home. But Karen salvaged the day. Before Andy could further dwell on the matter, she peeled her eyes away from the creek and said, “It’s rumored some fish are awaiting us up the road.”

     They followed the creek to where it formed a circular pool and watched men fish. Andy tried to expel the incident from his mind, but how Karen shrieked, “Stop!” continued ringing in his ears. Later that night, moments after Dock Ellis completed a 2-0 shutout of the Mets, Andy went to bed and found a note atop his pillow.

     Dear Andy,                                                                                                               

               I wish I could find the words to express how sorry I am about today. I can’t imagine what possessed me to react like that; if I ever find the right words, I’ll explain it. Here’s to hoping we can put the incident behind us and go on as before. You are a forgiving soul, aren’t you, Andy?

Love,

Karen

P.S. I had fun today. I didn’t even mind the fish, although these delicate little feet of mine will need time to recover before our next adventure.

*****

     At eight bucks per lawn, ten lawns a week, and ten weeks accounting for summer vacation, Andy made himself a tidy eight hundred on the nose! Not a bad sum of cash for a teen given the year, and Andy earned every cent of it, as he had no vehicle to lug a mower, trimmer, broom, and lawn bags. “He’s a real beast of burden, that young fella,” the locals would say. Moreover, he cared for Ted’s mower like a young man tinkering with his first car.

      “That’s how you maintain equipment,” The Ringmaster became fond of saying, his tenor serving as a reminder that others were lacking in that area. Nevertheless, Ted’s point wasn’t invalid: the mower sparkled more than Ted’s 1973 Impala, and the blades were the cleanest and sharpest utensils in New Castle. Moreover, Andy never bothered Ted about gas: once a week, he grabbed the can from the shed and hiked to the nearest station. “That’s how you run a business,” The Ringmaster beamed. “Making money is one matter, but knowing how to account for overhead is another entirely. That’s a dedicated young man we have living here.”

     “He’s a good young man,” Emma countered, making it clear that, of the two virtues, goodness, in the eyes of God, was more valuable than dedication.

     And Andy was as generous with his money as he was hard working in acquiring it: Two nights a week, he took Karen and Candi out for ice cream sundaes; on a third, he was good for the check at the local pizza parlor. Conveniently, on the way to the ice cream shop and pizza parlor was the drugstore that could accommodate a baseball card collector. Unfortunately, Andy’s generosity didn’t end with pizza and ice cream; he got cajoled into taking Karen and Candi to see the summer blockbuster Jaws. Ted, Emma, and Candi’s folks decided the movie was too intense for the girls and forbade them from seeing it. “Why not The Apple Dumpling Gang,” Emma suggested. “I hear it’s a lovely film.” Karen rolled her eyes and stretched the word “boring,” typical of a petulant teen. Andy meant to respect the wishes of both sets of parents but miscalculated female determination—or was it manipulation? Whichever, after several days mimicking a stout wall immune to feminine persuasion, the girls loosened his mortar and reduced him to a pile of rubble. They snuck off to a Sunday matinee. Who could blame Andy or the girls? Come September, no one wanted to return to school, not having seen a summer blockbuster for the ages.

     Walking from the theater, Karen and Candi wobbled, were white as ghosts, and visibly shaken. “Wasn’t exactly the feel-good story of the decade, was it?” Andy paradoxically intoned.

     Andy knew he was in for a heap of trouble, having paved the way for two girls to disobey their parents. The girls’ bearing gave him every indication they would unravel no sooner than they stepped through their respective doors, and their confessions, he suspected, would not resonate with the same innocence as falling asleep in a cornfield. He proposed stopping for ice cream, hoping it might cheer them up. Noticing Andy’s restlessness, Karen assured Andy, “Don’t worry, we won’t say anything—not one word. Right, Candi?”

     Candi Holloway’s effort to affirm Karen’s entreaty, to be generous, was meager and did little to inspire confidence. Candi was busy dwelling on an upcoming family vacation at the Jersey shore and how she would explain why she refused to venture anywhere near water. Waiting for her ice cream, Candi Holloway appeared wary that, any second, a Great White would emerge from behind the counter and engulf her. 

     “Maybe next week we’ll sneak off to see The Exorcist. I hear it’s a barrel of laughs.” Andy’s remark elicited wryness from Karen but no response from Candi.

     Andy and Karen flanked Candi as they escorted the terrorized girl to her front door, waited until her hand gripped the doorknob, and made sure she was safely inside before turning to leave. “Remember, Candi,” Karen firmly reminded her friend, “not a word!”          

     Andy convinced himself that the phone was already ringing at 18 Court Street and that his punishment would be a resolved affair no sooner than he stepped through the door, though he was more angry with himself and his poor judgment than Candi.  Walking home, Karen peeped, “Would you mind if Buddy sleeps in my room tonight?” Andy replied, “If you believe a Foxhound can fend off a Great White shark, sure.”

     To Andy’s astonishment, Candi did not crumble. Although she failed to dip the tip of a toe into the Atlantic Ocean, she never mentioned the word Jaws. Menstrual cramps did the trick.

     The summer flew by as summers tend to, leaving many to savor its dwindling days. The first day back to school, a boy approached Andy and said, “I know you; you’re that boy I see running with that dog.”

     “He’s an English Foxhound; his name’s Buddy.”

     “He’s a beauty. But maybe, for a change, you’d like to run with Panda and me? I’m Davy Shaw.”

     Andy shot Davy Shaw a queer look; it was implied and understood: Thanks, but I’ll stick to running with my dog. Davy Shaw clarified, “Panda, as in Mario Panderelli. We call him Panda for short.” Before they went their separate ways, Davy Shaw called to Andy, “Wait! You didn’t think I meant that I run around town with a black and white bear, did you?”

     “The thought never crossed my mind,” Andy lied.

     Saturday at nine a.m., after a vigorous romp with Buddy—Andy wouldn’t have enjoyed time with new friends had it come at Buddy’s expense—Andy met Davy Shaw and Panda at the playground on Jefferson Street. The trio jogged across town to Ferris Road, a country lane well-wooded on both sides but not so dense it impeded the morning sun from filtering to the road. It was a quiet lane save for the echoes of nature, a runner’s paradise. Andy would soon share the novelty with Buddy, though his first impression of Davy Shaw and Panda was that they would make suitable running buddies. Until today, Andy hadn’t known anyone who shared his zeal for so primal an activity of running for running’s sake—the thrill of bounding untethered upon the space of a plane, of propelling one’s body by its authority. But Andy couldn’t utter the name “Panda,” and Panda did not mind a peer calling him Mario.  

     Five miles later, including a hundred-yard sprint at the end, they arrived back at the Jefferson Street playground, accommodating its usual Saturday crowd.

     “Christ, you’re not even breathing hard,” Davy Shaw said incredulously of Andy. “Your whole insides must be nothing but lungs.”

     “His breathing hasn’t changed since we left,” said Panda.

     Shaking his head, Davy Shaw added, “That can’t be normal.”

     Out running, I see?” said Conner Livingston, his smugness intimating that running was an activity beneath him. Conner came to Jefferson Street dressed for a social, with every hair strand given due attention. He was on the prowl but preferred to think of himself as sought after—his heavily scented, neatly attired adolescent body and well-crafted blonde locks were attractions no one should overlook, or so thought this trendsetting sophisticate whose fair and glowing skin was unfamiliar to dirt and sweat.

     On day one, after a summer reprieve, Conner, who delighted in mocking the superficial imperfections of others, was right back at Andy’s ears. Andy pretended not to hear—a skill he learned from Karen one Sunday last spring. But it was not that Sunday; it was today. Andy was bursting with post-running endorphins and peptides—every pore, vein, and corpuscle in his body pulsed with vigor—and it prompted him to throw Conner Livingston a curve after Conner taunted, “Those parachutes you call ears: it’s a wonder they don’t hold you up when running. Then again, maybe they do.”   

     Andy looked squarely at Conner and said, “You’re right; these goddamn things sure are big. But just what the hell do you propose I do about them? I can’t get rid of them, even if they occasionally offend somebody. Got any ideas? If you do, I’m all ears.”

     Glen Morton and Patrick Kane, the two boys with Conner Livingston, erupted with laughter. Conner took a step back. He had no fear of reprisal but wanted out of the shadow of someone who provided an unexpected challenge. The grounds of Jefferson Street were Conner’s turf, or so Conner preferred to believe, just as Conner was confident he was why female peers flocked to the grounds. Frothing with pomposity, Conner waved an arm at his supposed followers and said, “Think you’re man enough, Andy? Let’s see what you got.” Conner suspected females were a mystery to the introverted orphan. Sensing the tables had turned, Andy frowned.

     “What’s the matter, Andy? Got nothing to say,” Conner taunted. He looked at the others and further jeered, “Looks like Mr. Endurance must be a virgin!”

     “Whatever,” Andy muttered. He turned to Davy Shaw and Panda and said, “I’ve got to be getting along.”

     As Andy turned to leave, Conner added, “Although I could be wrong. You never know what’s going on over there at 18 Court Street. Karen is looking rather womanly nowadays.”

     Karen, lying on the lawn beside Buddy when Andy returned, chirped, “How was your run?”

     “Fine.” 

     “Fine? We’re a bit succinct today, aren’t we?”

     “It was a run,” Andy said. “It could go one of two ways: fine or lousy. It went fine.”

     “What’s got your horns all twisted?”

     “Nothing.”

     “Or something. Let me guess,” said Karen. “You ran into Conner.”

     “Yeah, I ran into Mr. Congeniality; he was his usual congenial self.”

     “How much longer can he go on with the same nonsense? He must be getting tired, if not bored.”

     “It wasn’t the same nonsense,” Andy told Karen. “He’s moved on to other matters.”

     “What other matters?”

     “Nothing,” Andy groused. “It’s not important.”

     “If it concerns you, it’s important,” Karen pressed.

     Andy plopped between Karen and Buddy on the grass. He sank his fingers into the hound’s fur. “Conner spewed this idiotic notion of what he suspects is happening in our house.”

     Karen’s head jerked toward Andy, whose focus was on Buddy. “What idiotic notion does he suspect?” Karen’s tenor was icy and belligerent; her glowering eyes, had Andy looked her way, might have caused him to shudder.

     “Let’s forget it,” Andy pleaded.

     “I don’t want to forget it.” Karen’s snapping tone prompted Andy to cry, “Easy; if your temperature climbs any higher, you’ll stroke.”

     “I’m not laughing, Andy.”

     “Fine; Conner insinuated that you and I are…” Andy shrugged and said, “I don’t think I need to fill in the blanks.”

       Karen sprang to her feet. Although her hands covered her mouth, they failed to prevent the shriek reverberating in Andy’s ears from escaping. Next, like a collection of parts over which she had little control, Karen bounded toward the house.  When she disappeared, Andy tossed up his arms and said to Buddy, “If you could explain what that was all about, I’d appreciate it.” 

     Later that night, Andy found a note on his pillow:

Dear Andy,

I’m sorry for the way I reacted today. I don’t know what’s wrong with me lately; I fear I’ve become too sensitive for my own good. I know how damaging rumors can be.  Worse, the more awful the rumor, the more people treat it as truth. That being the case, it would hurt my heart to see you sullied by lies. I suppose such things never happened at a place like St. Pete’s. Walls are a funny thing. Some imprison, others protect. From now on, I’ll try not to let my emotions get the better of me. Perhaps you could help me on that front. You’re always so level-headed. I admire that.

Love,

Karen

     Come autumn, Andy and Ted watched their beloved Bucs taken apart in a best-of-five series sweep by the Big Red Machine from Cincinnati.

     “There’s always next year,” Karen consoled Andy. “Hope springs eternal.”

     Andy frowned at what he alleged was Karen’s insincerity, the glib manner in which she regarded his emotions.

      Karen kept abreast of the Bucs and Steelers through the daily newspaper; skimming the local rag allowed her to meet Andy on the surface. Moreover, Karen was not immune to the passion sports tend to stir, but she stayed clear of the living room at game time; she found how her father spectated, his acerbic outbursts, unpleasant. “If I did my job that shoddy, I’d get fired,” was one of Ted’s customary rants. Karen held her tongue but wanted to remind Ted that his job didn’t require him to compete in front of throngs of spectators, as men of similar ability tried to prevent him from performing satisfactorily.

     As it tends to, winter came early in the northwestern region of Pennsylvania. Regretfully, Davy Shaw and Panda told Andy the time had come to set aside running until spring. Andy was back running exclusively with his old faithful, Buddy.

     Andy could have cited a bottomless pit of energy he sought to expend as an impetus for running. The thrill of knifing swiftly through space and the tingling that made his skin, from head to toe, mimic a supernova bursting into millions of glowing particles when he was through were motivations no less viable. Andy knew not the reason behind his running obsession, nor could he say whether he was running to or away from something. When he was running, motivation aside, a gangly young man, who few would describe as handsome, transformed into sheer magnificence or poetry in motion to coin a beaten-to-death idiom.    

     The calendar flipped to January: Andy and Ted cheered as the Steelers beat the Cowboys to win Super Bowl X. In the two weeks between the AFC Championship and Super Bowl, Andy lost count of how many times The Ringmaster reenacted the Immaculate Reception. Ted would grab a small couch pillow and demonstrate step-by-step the NFL’s most stunning reversal of fortune, playing the roles of Terry Bradshaw, Frenchy Fuqua, Jack Tatum, and Franco Harris. It mattered not that Andy reminded Ted he witnessed the famous catch in real time; nothing could temper The Ringmaster’s enthusiasm. 

     March 20th came and went. Andy turned fourteen. Following spring break, he returned to school as Andy Trumaine. Andy woke earlier than usual that first morning, spending the afforded time examining his reflection in the mirror. He posed as though a new name was as apparent as a new set of clothes and critiqued its stylishness and suitability.Finally, he walked away from the mirror, arriving at one conclusion: he was taller. Ted stood five feet ten inches tall. Andy, already looking down at Ted, stood six feet and was climbing.

     The boy from Saint Pete’s had every right to feel nervous about the reactions of classmates: Students arrive at school for the first time wearing eyeglasses, with teeth wrapped in braces, or trying to conceal a bad haircut, but seldom, if ever, does one show up bearing another name. Karen was as thrilled as Andy was nervous. She barged into Andy’s room the night before the big day, wanting to rehearse how they would present themselves to friends. Andy scoffed at the notion of rehearsing, citing that reorganizing his baseball cards would be a better use of time. Karen called him a “spoilsport” and expressed her displeasure of Andy snubbing her by childishly forcing air past her protruding tongue.

     New surname aside, Andy felt no different than before spring break. His place in the world remained unaltered. The same could not be said of his station: he was a son and a brother, though, where Emma and Karen were concerned, that he was officially made a Trumaine did not alter his affections. This morning, like every morning, Andy kissed Emma goodbye. What made the morning different? When Andy kissed Emma, he addressed her as Mom. Uttering the word came naturally, but the impact of hearing it proved more affecting than Emma expected. Diverting her misty eyes, Emma regained the necessary poise to place a gentle hand on Andy’s cheek and call him “son.”  

     So gentle of soul was this God and nature-loving creature called Emma Trumaine. Andy found Emma’s vulnerability—a trait she bequeathed Karen, which some perceived as weakness—the most human among her many affecting aspects. Aside from charitable, Andy alleged vulnerability in the face of a harsh world as a sign of strength. Unless referring to Ted in the third person, Dad was a word never launched from Andy’s lips. The Ringmaster developed a fond appreciation for “Sir,”and for that, Andy was grateful.  

*****

     Vis-à-vis the fitness test and one-mile run—unless one produced an exemption in the form of a doctor’s note, both were high school requirements—there were two kinds of students: those confident in their ability and relished the opportunity to assert themselves and others who experienced impending doom, as too many of their meals included Pop-Tarts, and now their time of reckoning had arrived. With a shillyshally gait, the physically inept would amble to the gymnasium like those sentenced to march off a plank into a raging sea. Watching their efforts to change into gym shorts and sneakers, one might suspect those articles marked the code of attire when placed before a firing squad.  

     The fitness test consisted of push-ups, chin-ups, sit-ups, a shuttle run, and an endurance run. Poor Ralph Bartlett couldn’t complete a sit-up if someone were waiting at the other end with a spoonful of Häagen-Dazs. Unless she stooped with the gentility of someone serving tea to British Consorts, Jamie Driscoll stumbled attempting to pick up the blocks in the shuttle run. Once, Jamie booted a block clear across the gym floor and, upon retrieving it, recorded the worst time in school history, if not American History.

     The fitness test was a source of dread. The mile run struck fear in the hearts of the unfit. Concerning the fitness test, if someone failed to complete a sit-up, they took their zero and moved to the next exercise in a crowded, clamorous gymnasium, where few may have noticed. One was required to complete the mile run, even if they had to walk the last lap or two. Moreover, the run took place at the track, out in the open, with many onlookers eager to jeer the enfeebled.

     Students followed Mr. Clemens from the gymnasium across the street to the track. Along the way, a smattering of chatter over whether or not Clemens would notice anyone gone AWOL echoed through the ranks, though it was unlikely freshmen in September would step out of line.  After running through a battery of stretches, the first group of runners took their first steps toward completing a mile. Coach Squirek, who headed the cross-country and track-and-field programs, always on the lookout for new talent, muttered from the bleachers, “Every year, there’s a dope who doesn’t know the meaning of the word pace.” The coach had an eye on Andy, who jumped to a fifty-yard lead after half a lap; after a full lap, Andy doubled his lead. Coach Squirek jibed, “The fool will be on all fours gasping long before he sees a mile.”

     Before Andy completed a second lap, he lapped two runners and had a third in his sights: Conner Livingston. “Here comes the Dumbo-eared virgin,” Andy muttered to himselfas he blew past Conner without a glance, like the smug boy was as inconsequential as a wad of gum stuck to the ground. Once Andy turned onto the straightaway, he grinned broadly; it was gratifying to intimate “fuck you” without opening his mouth.

     Coach Squirek fixed his eyes on the lead runner as he rose from his bleacher seat and made his way to the track. “Sonofabitch; his pace hasn’t changed.” Andy entered his fourth lap when the coach approached Clemens and said, “Norm, who the hell is this kid?”

     Clemens glanced at his list and said, “The name’s Trumaine.”

     Andy crossed the finish line with a flourish. What Coach Squirek found more astonishing was that Andy appeared fresh enough to continue at the same pace. Moreover, the freshman miler didn’t approach Norm Clemens and ask for his time; he didn’t seem mildly curious. Instead, he moved to the track’s interior to spectate the next group of milers.

     “Norm,” barked the coach, “tell that Truman kid to land his ass in my office first thing after school.

     “It’s Trumaine,” Clemens reminded the coach.

     “Whatever,” said the coach before departing without bothering to scout other runners.

*****

     “Truman, you’re late!” Coach Squirek snarled.

     Andy, despite his lank and nerves, sinuously slipped through the door. 

     “Sorry, Sir; I had trouble finding the room. And it’s Trumaine.”

     “Freshmen,” grumbled the coach.

     “Sir?” peeped Andy.

    “Never mind. Come in and sit down.”

     As Andy settled into a seat, Coach Squirek said, “I managed to dig up some dirt on you; it turns out you’re that kid from over at Saint Pete’s?”

     “Yes, Sir, I am.”

     “Do they have a track team over there?”

     “Sir?”

     “Never mind.” Coach Squirek gruffly intoned. He paused. A tenor of admiration was evident when he said, “Where’d you learn to run like that? I assume you’ve had some training.”

     “Training?”

     “Am I not speaking English?”

     Shrinking in his seat, Andy peeped, “I run mostly with my dog.”

     Coach Squirek’s hands came crashing down on his desk. What followed the resounding slap of skin meeting oak was a fit of laughter. Andy thought the coach might fall out of his chair, but the laughter and vigorous quivering it produced ceased when he eyed Andy and bellowed, “Sonofabitch; you’re serious!”

     Andy managed a nod, albeit a feeble one. Coach Squirek, who had no aversion to unorthodox methods, asked, “What kind of dog do you run with?”

     “An English Foxhound,” Andy told the coach.

     “Good breed, the Foxhound; they know a thing or two about endurance.” Coach Squirek, leading with an imposing shoulder, leaned across his desk and asked, “Do you know who John Paul Jones is? Ever hear of ‘im?”

     “No, Sir, I haven’t,” Andy didn’t mind admitting.

     “It’s about time you had.”

     “Why is that?” Andy was curious, not insolent.

     “John Paul Jones was once the world record holder in the mile. He held it in 1913. That’s a long time ago, but a world record is still a world record. His time, I’ll assume you’re curious, was 4:14. Today, you ran it in 4:13.”

     Coach Squirek rocked back in his chair and watched his words sink into the head of an incredulous freshman. Andy swiveled to the edge of the chair; his back straightened, his attention fully procured. “John Walker is the current world record holder at 3:49.4. You’re only 23.6 seconds off the pace. Like John Paul Jones, I also ran a 4:14 mile. I was twenty seconds off Peter Snell’s world record pace when I did it. I was an eighteen-year-old senior. You’re a fourteen-year-old freshman.”

     Andy fell against the back of the chair, a place better suited for absorbing new information and sorting what it means.

     “From now on, you can call me Coach Squirek. I’m putting you on the cross-country team with a varsity slot. Our first official practice is on Saturday morning. Have your ass at the track by ten sharp. If you’re a minute late, you’re welcome to try again next year.”

     Andy’s head was a whirlwind. Later that afternoon, he shared the news with Karen as they nestled themselves into a row in the cornfield.

     “Varsity?” Karen intoned.

     “Can you believe it?” said Andy.

     “Won’t you be nervous running with all the upperclassmen?”

      “I hadn’t thought about it.” To ease his mind, Andy supposed, “I’m sure there’ll be other freshmen on the team.”

     “But they won’t be competing with the varsity.”

     “You’re right.” Andy sighed. It prompted Karen to cry, “Don’t waste a second worrying about it; if Coach Squirek didn’t think you’d be an asset to the team, he wouldn’t have pursued you.”

     “Right again,” said Andy.

      “Let’s make a pact,” said Karen. “You do the running. I’ll do the worrying. Besides, if it were sixty-three years ago, you’d be the fastest miler in the world!”

     “I would, wouldn’t I?”

     It seemed too fanciful a notion to utter aloud. Andy had yet to tell Davy Shaw and Panda his good fortune. He hoped they wouldn’t mind running on Sundays; else, he’d miss their companionship. “We should get going,” he said.

     “It’s still early,” Karen reminded him.

     “I didn’t mean home; I meant down the road, to the pool, to see if anyone’s fishing.”

     “You’re impossible!”

     “At dinner, after Karen and Emma finished pleasing The Ringmaster with a satisfactory account of their respective days, Andy announced the good news.

     “Varsity?” Ted intoned. “I didn’t realize you had planned to try out.”

     “He didn’t try out,” Karen explained. “Today was the day the whole school had to complete the ‘dreaded’ mile run. Coach Squirek was in the bleachers and saw Andy run. He was so impressed he gave Andy a varsity slot on a silver platter, though I heard it was more a case of conscription and that Andy had little say in the matter.”

     “How wonderful,” said Emma. “You should be proud.”

     “What if Coach Squirek wasn’t sitting in the bleachers? Had you planned to join the cross-country team and compete for a top position?” Ted placed a decisive elbow on the table; his brow arched authoritatively.

     “Sometimes, luck is on our side,” Andy told The Ringmaster.

     “Sometimes,” said Ted. “But relying on luck is a fool’s practice. You’ve got to go through life with your eyes wide open, ready to grab opportunities. Understand?”

     “I do,” said Andy.

     Ted’s words were not short on merit. When he was through doling out a “life lesson,” the afterglow enveloping Andy since leaving Coach Squirek’s office had dissipated. Next, for what remained of the dinner hour, The Ringmaster regaled everyone with anecdotes drawn from his days on the gridiron, playing linebacker for the varsity. Andy listened politely and learned. Karen, still nibbling at cold food, had the stories memorized. Emma had lived them, relived them, and continues to relive them. As Ted yammered on, Emma’s gaze fell on Andy. No one noticed the subtle pulsating of a delicate throat or eyes that became impaired with mist. Before Ted finished, Emma excused herself from the table. 

     Later that evening, the Cardinals dashed the fading hopes of Andy and Ted’s beloved Pirates. The loss opened the door for the upstarts from Philadelphia to take the National League’s Eastern Division. Ted, beer at his side, the newspaper in his lap, nodded off in the seventh inning upon unleashing a signature tirade as the Pirates fell behind 10-5. He shouted himself to sleep, Andy thought. Next came snores that mimicked thunder. Andy knew, tomorrow, not to count on Buddy or Karen—it would be one of those Saturdays patterned with anomalous contingencies—but, for the time being, he kept his mind focused on Coach Squirek, the season’s first practice, and how he planned to ingratiate himself to his teammates. The latter unsettled him. During the night, he pondered the many miles he had thus far run, how natural running seemed, and how different it would feel to do what came naturally competitively. Before he dove too deeply into the matter, what sounded like tossing and turning from Karen’s bedroom distracted him. He rolled over to put his arm around Buddy. Before long, he fell asleep, and Buddy hopped out of bed.   

     Coach Squirek, glancing down at his wristwatch, stood motionless and unnaturally erect on the grass of the track’s interior, his gruff face twisting in anticipation that someone would dare to arrive a tick on the tardy side. The seniors drove up in cars; the juniors hitched rides with the seniors; the sophomores and one freshman got chauffeured. And then came Andy, on time but well lathered from running to practice.

     “Crazy bastard, this kid,” Coach Squirek said to Kirk Schumacher, the team captain. Then he barked to the rest of the team, “Everyone warm up!” Coach Squirek glared at Andy and growled, “Truman, I guess you’re already warmed up.” 

     Smiling sheepishly, Andy followed Kirk Schumacher as the captain led the team in a battery of stretches. After a lap around the track, the team jogged across town to Neshannock Creek and along the water. Next, they crossed Banks Bridge and skirted the perimeter of Andy’s cornfield. Andy kept to the middle of the pack, assuming it was the safest place. Were he to bring up the rear, he feared getting pegged as the ‘newbie’ who didn’t belong. It serves you right for being foolish enough to run to practice would be the implication in the upperclassmen’s sneers. Nor would he jump to the front; it might appear an act of someone apathetic toward ingratiating himself with teammates. Who does he think he is, this pissant freshman? The team returned to the field, completing a five-mile run with a final lap around the track.

     “Who is this kid?” Kirk Schumacher asked Coach Squirek. “Does he have a third lung? He looks fresher than when we started.”

     “He’s a ringer,” the coach replied. Then Coach Squirek announced, “Practice Monday, practice Tuesday, first meet Wednesday, dismissed.” Piteously, he added, gesturing to Andy, “And would someone please give this poor bastard a lift home?”

     Andy spent Tuesday night talking to Buddy and sorting baseball cards in his room. He was excited about the next day’s meet but also anxious, and the presence of a faithful hound and sorting cards calmed him. His collection had grown to boastworthy status. He divided his collection into teams and used a shoebox for a filing cabinet. It was an effective system, organizing baseball cards using this method, but invariably, someone got traded in-season and screwed up his system. Rather than suffer the aggravation, he arranged the cards by position: first basemen, second basemen, etc. He studied each card and applied statistical analysis to determine the best players at each position, then arranged them accordingly. He had difficulty with objectivity when ranking players wearing a Pirate uniform. “What do you think, Buddy? Is John Candelaria just as good as Steve Carlton?” He held both cards inches from the hound’s snout and encouraged him to choose. Buddy sniffed the remnants of long-since chewed bubblegum. Finally, Andy decided, “One day he might be, and that’s good enough for me.”                                 

     Andy heard feet climbing the steps and walking across the hall. When you live with people long enough, you can recognize their footsteps. Andy knew it was Karen who stopped at his door. Next, he saw a neatly folded sheet of paper emerging between the door and the rug. The footsteps moved on to the next room. Andy walked to the door, reached down, and unfolded the paper.

     Dear Andy,

Don’t think too hard about tomorrow; nothing we love should burden us. And don’t forget our pact: You do the running; I’ll do the worrying. I’m confident you’ll do well; you’re a fantastic runner; everyone says so, including Conner Livingston, though he would never say it to you in person. So I urge you not to worry. There are matters in life far more important than where one finishes in a race. Believe me, I know. I beg you not to ask how I know; just understand I do.

Love Karen

     Andy paced his room, rereading words intended to inspire but proved enigmatic and too vague to interpret. Was Karen reaching out? Was there an issue among peers to which Andy had grown blind? Before long, Andy returned to his cards and Buddy.

     As the boys filed out of the locker room to the track, Coach Squirek told Andy, “Relax, kid; running for you is as natural as breathing. Get out there and breathe!”

     The meet began like practice runs: with a lap around the track. Andy settled in the middle of the pack. Outside the stadium, where the scent of autumn was copious, he drew the season’s offerings into his lungs, then looked skyward at the sun filtering through red and gold clusters adorning the scaffolding of many trees. He purged from his thoughts that he was competing. He would run for the sake of running until he dissolved into the scenery or sensed himself running on Ferris Road with Davy Shaw and Panda, but the derogatory murmurings he heard earlier in the locker room replayed in his head and disturbed his reverie. 

     “I hear he trains with a dog,” intoned one.

     “Maybe the dog’s his trainer,” laughed another.

     Andy’s eyes shifted from the play of sunrays upon leaves to the ground, where he imagined Buddy trotting alongside him. Together, they galloped more miles than he could remember, their strides and tempo synchronized, a human and canine mirroring each other’s muscle memory. Perhaps a dog had trained him. The notion might have tickled Andy if not for his affection for Buddy. Their relationship, save for those mysterious Saturdays, was built on trust, dependability, and determination; it was equally meaningful as it was transcendent to forces of nature—they ran through every kind of storm, and the more adverse the conditions, the more they rejoiced—neither would dare disappoint the other.    

     The meet pitted a group of high school cross-country runners versus an English Foxhound. On Andy ran, insensible to the autumn air, the cerulean sky, the sun on his shoulders, his teammates, and competitors; his focus transfixed to the ground a half stride in front, where Buddy ran in lockstep, their unwavering pace akin to a machine propelled by pistons. He did not raise an eye until he sensed coming upon the withered stalks of his cornfield. It saddened him that his field would soon get plowed over; its flattened acreages, like the scarceness of men and their fishing poles, would serve as a testament to a long, frosty winter. The notion of darker, lonelier days sparked another sensation; it hastened a twinge of panic. Andy was running alone. The dread besetting him was similar to driving an unfamiliar road many miles without encountering another vehicle, thus triggering fear that the road was not merely foreign but wrong. Had he veered from the course? Was he that far behind the field?He heard Karen in his head reminding him, “You do the running; I’ll do the worrying.” Before long, like the driver who spots the sign for the exit he was praying to come upon, Andy releases a sigh. He was in the lead; the gap was enormous. He looked over his shoulder and saw someone he thought resembled Kirk Schumacher two hundred yards behind. Andy eased his pace to get a better look. It was the team captain running second. He slowed further, and before long, he and Kirk Schumacher ran shoulder to shoulder with a comfortable lead.  

     “You’re something else, kid,” the senior captain remarked. “Maybe you should bring that hound of yours to practice. If he can make better runners out of us, why not? As a courtesy, we’ll let him forgo warm-ups.” On that note, Andy knew the senior was having fun with the freshman, though they shared a chuckle visualizing a canine exercising his glutes. 

     In a thoughtful tenor, Kirk told Andy, “It’s standard procedure for upperclassmen to test freshmen, even if the freshman is a phenom. So don’t let the locker room banter get to you; the guys wanna keep it business as usual and not make you feel like you come from different circumstances.” Andy nodded. “Since it’s just the two of us, what was it like over there at Saint Pete’s?”

     “It might sound crazy to someone who grew up traditionally, but I wouldn’t trade away a day I spent there. It’ll always be part of me.”

     “I guess it’s true what they say: regardless of where we start, the cream rises to the top.” The compliment made Andy smile.

     The senior and freshman entered the stadium. With no competitors in sight, they took to the track with a single lap to complete the course. At the halfway point, Andy reminded Kirk Schumacher, “You’re the team captain.” Andy crossed the finish line a stride behind Kirk.

     After the meet, Coach Squirek summoned Andy to his office. Not yet through the doorway, Andy could tell the coach’s mood wasn’t indicative of one whose team was victorious in its first meet of the season.

     “Son,” he began, “the most important aspect of sports is T-E-A-M team! Team goals come first; individual goals come second. It was magnanimous, coughing up first place to a teammate. It may even have made sense, as a courtesy to a team captain, if the two of you had been running stride for stride throughout the meet. But that wasn’t the case.”

     Andy’s gaze met the floor.

     “You had a two-hundred-yard lead, if I’m not mistaken? By allowing Kirk to catch up, you broke your stride and, subsequently, your concentration and competitive edge. I don’t believe I’m overstressing that that’s how injuries can occur. Next time you have a lead that size, keep your pace and finish strong!” Andy promised he would. In closing, Coach Squirek snarled, “Be a good teammate, not a foolish one. If you have a kind streak and wanna do good deeds, rescue a stray dog or find a cat stuck in a tree.”

     Andy was thankful his teammates were gone from the locker room when he tiptoed from Coach Squirek’s office; he was in no mood to explain what transpired, though Kirk Schumacher waited for him outside the locker room door. “Coach was right. It was your race to win.”

     “You heard?”

     “Most of it. I figured that’s why Coach called you in.” With a regretful frown, Kirk said, “My fault. As a senior captain, I should’ve known better.” Kirk took his first-place medal and hung it around Andy’s neck.

     “Since our team was gonna win the meet either way, I figured I was doing right by yielding to the captain.”

     “The truth is, kiddo, I run cross-country and track because it’s what I can do. I was never much with a bat in my hand, I don’t have basketball agility, and the notion of getting my brains beaten in on the gridiron never appealed to me. It’s for pure enjoyment that I run track and cross-country. That I get to compete is a bonus. I’ve had some success, and for it, I’m grateful, but I haven’t any grand illusions of a track scholarship or becoming an Olympian. You’re different. Coach Squirek and every member of this team know it.”

     Not until Kirk Schumacher lauded Andy’s ability did Andy fully grasp that Coach Squirek’s pre-meet line, “running for you is as natural as breathing,” wasn’t just a pep-talk. Andy never imagined himself the recipient of admiration for doing what was instinctive and that it could produce a scholarship. As for the Olympics? It was too far-flung a concept to imagine.

     “Come; I’ll give you a lift home.”

     “You don’t mind?”

     “No. And besides, it’ll gimme an opportunity to meet your trainer.”

     Andy liked Kirk Schumacher. On principle, it’s uncustomary for seniors to give newbies the time of day, never mind taking them under their wing. When they romped about with Buddy in the backyard, Andy couldn’t help but look at Kirk and summon the vision of someone older, a touch taller, and with darker, wavy hair—concerning how the team captain treated others and led, how could Andy not think of Maxi? He grew melancholy, wondering what became of the person he most admired in more youthful days at Saint Pete’s.

     Save for the day he spent battling a cold, Andy finished first or second in every meet. His success helped earn the team an invitation to run at the regional meet held in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Sunday, before the trip, Andy and Karen hiked to the cornfield. To their dismay, where once stood a dense field was a vacant expanse—the withered stalks got plowed over. Gone too—apparent in the ether—was the buoyancy of fairer seasons.     

     “It’ll be back next spring,” said Karen, her tenor ringing more with disenchantment than sanguinity.

     In recent trips to the cornfield, their conversations were less about Little Joe and Andy’s days at Saint Pete’s and more about themselves in the present. Slowly, surely, and unmistakably, Saint Pete’s was getting kicked further into the past; images and memories grew increasingly difficult to conjure. Upon arriving at 18 Court Street, Andy would lay awake pondering the days of childhood; he would play, rewind, and play again, with the hope every experience, affecting or joyful, would remain vivid; unfortunately, time, the most boundless and unpitying aspect of the human experience, an element as inexorable as it is unmerciful, was marching, and its trudge was impregnable; the unassailable sacrosanctity of time’s steadfastness would pave the way for new experiences, leaving less time for remembering. We’re just like real brothers, right, Andy? Some utterances would remain. “We were once, Little Joe.”  

     “Come again?” said Karen.

     Andy’s drifting mind came crashing back to a barren cornfield. Before long, he brightened and said, “Come on, Karen, let’s go…”

     “… See about the fish. God forbid we forget the damn fish!” 

*****

     The following spring at track practice—he didn’t seek it or need it—Andy had his very own cheering section: Karen and Candi. Because Andy was a freshman, Karen insisted he required support. That was what she told Candi Holloway when, in reality, Karen was providing her closest friend a gateway to Andy in a way that wouldn’t label her “a pursuer” with the hope that Andy, who thus seemed insensible to feminine charm, would respond. Dunderheaded as he was where romance was concerned, Andy assumed Karen was playing the role of a supportive sibling, and Candi had tagged along. After practice, Kirk Schumacher offered all three a lift home; he dropped Candi off and then headed to 18 Court Street.

     “Mind if I spend time with your trainer?” Kirk asked Andy.

     Andy brightened whenever Kirk took an interest in his running partner. “Buddy loves it when you come by.”

     Romping about the yard, Kirk put the question, “What’s it gonna be?” to Andy. Andy responded with an ineffectual shrug. Kirk frowned and said, “If someone has to explain the facts of life to you, it may as well be me.”

     A quizzical look came over Andy. The senior captain explained, “Girls go to football games; they don’t hang around the practice field. You might see a handful in the gym for a basketball game but never for practice. So when a girl shows up at track practice and stays for the duration, it’s for a good reason, which has little or nothing to do with the sport.”

     “So, what you’re saying,” Andy intoned, “life’s foremost core principle is ‘Beware of girls at practice?”’

     “Yeah, smartass, that’s precisely what I’m saying. But all joking aside, Candi’s not hard to look at; you might consider taking an interest before someone else does.”

     “Maybe I should,” Andy feebly offered. Though ‘not hard to look at’ or otherwise, he hadn’t any preoccupation for the effervescent and chatty Candi Holloway or any girl, despite a love interest being the only component missing from his resume since acquiring the status of “well-respected student-athlete.”

     After Kirk Schumacher’s departure, Andy retreated to his faithful hound and card collection. He was a fifteen-year-old freshman who viewed female peers as mysteries he was ill-equipped to solve; their aspects were no more within his grasp than the properties of galactic nuclei and electromagnetic spectrums of quasars—male peers, particularly Conner Livingston, derived pleasure by pointing out Andy’s romantic disposition. “Vagina repellent” was what they dubbed his cologne of choice. “Splash it on and watch the girls scatter.”

     Meanwhile, Karen saw no mystery in masculinity and showed no inclination to dabble. “Somewhere in the universe lives a boy who isn’t a beast,” she would state with the coolness of one hovering above the fray, though there were plenty of boys whose nature one could describe as less than bestial. The mystery was Karen herself and how she guarded against any possibility of a male peer exceeding the scope of friendship. With her ribbons, bows, unrevealing attire, prettiness, and intellect, she made the shortlist of girls every mother wanted for their son. As best they could, Karen and Andy let roll off their shoulders, snickering for not seeking romance or finding the notion unenticing because they had each other.

     Engrossed in his cards, Andy entertained the prospect of a girlfriend. Because he was insensible that Karen was paving his way to Candi, he grew fraught over how she might react. Before long, he heard The Ringmaster’s Impala roll into the driveway. It was only minutes until the nightly routine: Tell Me About Your Day. Andy chuckled, thinking it was a good concept for a game show: Three contestants would boast how exciting their respective days were. The studio audience would vote. The winner would walk away with an appliance while the losers had to endure Ted reenacting Franco Harris’s Immaculate Reception. Andy came to the dinner table wearing a smirk, which, thankfully, no one asked him to explain.

*****

     Friday marked the season’s first track meet. Andy, no surprise, would represent the team as a miler. As the team sprinted from the locker room to the track, he noticed how different a track meet was from a cross-country meet. In the latter, a group of runners gallop about country lanes, open fields, and alongside creeks; in the bleachers sit a dedicated smattering offering shouts of encouragement at the launch of a meet and cheers at the end. A track meet, by comparison—because its totality is confined to a stadium—draws a much larger crowd. It surprised Andy but didn’t unnerve him. The bleachers were filled with families supporting the four competing schools, a chunk of the student body, and locals supporting the home team. Andy gazed into a multitude comprised mainly of unfamiliar faces. The crowd’s collective eyes dissected color-coded uniforms and numbers to spot a son, daughter, sibling, or friend. Andy’s moment to shine was before him, ready to embrace; its perspicuity, as it pertained to his career, was never clearer, if not as straightforward as Coach Squirek’s pre-meet pep talks, which tend to be ferociously lucid. (“Career” was a term Coach Squirek pulled from his tool kit when alluding to Andy and running; its purpose was to dissuade his freshman phenom from any temptations that could cause him to stray from the program.)

     Andy was overcome by a moment of melancholy when what flashed through his mind were the names Harold Goolsby, Nicky Rincon, Cynthia Suarez, and others. What became of his old friends? What would they think of him, tall, proud, and donning a uniform on which was stitched a number? Would they recognize him, or he, them? How they, too, must have changed over the years. Andy’s moment of melancholy shattered when he spotted Karen sitting in the bleachers. So sweet yet so complicated was the boy from Saint Pete’s adoptive sister. Karen sat with her fingers tightly crossed. Andy muttered to himself, “You do the worrying; I’ll do the running.” Had the thrall of melancholy required additional shattering, Coach Squirek whacking his back and barking, “Just get out there and breathe!” would have availed.  

     “Don’t worry,” Andy told the coach, “I feel on top of my game.”

     His brief spell of melancholy aside, Andy felt as alive and alert as ever. From the earliest rays of sunlight, his legs were as antsy as a two-year-old thoroughbred at gate time—they screamed to assert themselves in the spirit of competition. The mile run resembled a contest for a lap, as Andy settled in the middle of the pack just as he had during his first cross-country practice. From within the cluster, he spotted Karen in the crowd; she was wringing her hands together. Next, he shifted his gaze to meet the consternation of Coach Squirek. Andy nodded to assure the coach he was in control of the outcome. Karen continued wringing her nervous hands; the bug-eyed visage of Coach Squirek conveyed the blunt message: Hey, kiddo, quit fooling around and get your ass in gear!

     Midway through the second lap, Andy separated from the pack. A familiar theme followed: the purging of thoughts and prevailing instincts, hastening a transfiguration from awkwardness and ungainliness to beauty and magnificence. Pure, rarefied, and splendid was this metamorphosis that unfolded one graceful stride at a time; it commanded all eyes, regardless of allegiance, and not because Andy led or made the endeavor hopeless for others, but that he mimicked a blade whose radiance knifed through space with an ease rarely witnessed. Beginning the fourth lap, Andy was so isolated from the pack that it was difficult to tell whether he was winning in a landslide or running a disastrous race, though his form revealed the truth. Turning onto the final straightaway, he turned on the jets and finished with a flourish.

     “Can you believe this kid?” Kirk Schumacher, who finished first in the 800-meter run, exclaimed to Coach Squirek. Andy shaved fourteen seconds off his September run, crossing the finish line at 3:58. “And you got him for three more years!” It gave the coach pause to imagine all this orphaned boy from Saint Pete’s named Andy Trumaine could accomplish under his tutelage. Meanwhile, Andy spotted Karen in the bleachers, grinning with pride and reminding everyone, “That’s my brother!”

     “So, tell me about your day,” Ted said to Karen as all four Trumaines assembled for dinner.

     It was uncustomary for Karen to gloss over her day, omit details, or express little interest in the ones she touched upon, but that was what she did, precisely, until offering an account of the track meet. A spark glimmered in Karen’s eye when illuminating Ted about Andy’s momentous run: she gushed with Andy this, Andy that, and isn’t Andy fantastic? Emma noticed Ted fidgeting; The Ringmaster had grown weary of all the adulation heaped toward the other end of the table. Ted would not be outdone; he thwarted Karen’s praise of Andy and began to regale his detainees with the time he intercepted the ball on the one-yard line, preserving a victory against Central.

     “Central was driving; they were down by four. A field goal wouldn’t do; they needed a touchdown. Do you remember?” Ted asked Emma.

     “Of course,” Emma replied. Either Ted chose to ignore Emma’s condescending tone or was too wrapped up in his own legend to have noticed.

     “It was second down with under a minute to go,” Ted continued as he shaped the drama. “They went play-action pass—the guards pulled to the right, the quarterback faked a handoff to the tailback, then tried to hit the wide receiver running a slant route at the goal line—but we had it sniffed out. I undercut the route at the last possible second and intercepted the pass.”

     Andy listened politely as he always had whenever Ted relived his glory days, which was far oftener than Andy appreciated. Moreover, Ted was under the false impression that his anecdote from yesteryear induced a smile from Andy when, in fact, Andy musing that Ted merited an appliance was what triggered his mouth to form a grin.

     Andy and Ted witnessed the Pirates lose in a rout to the Astros, 11-3. The Bucs hurler, Jerry Reuss, was the focus of Ted’s fury. After the sixth inning—an inning that saw reliever Odell Jones cough up five runs—Ted’s eyes drooped shut, his fingers curled around a beer bottle. Later, startled in the twilight of consciousness, Andy woke from an ominous vision; it saw him outside, enshrouded in darkness, asleep and alone on a roadside. Imagining lying in the cornfield before his subconscious was trespassed upon by an incoherent episode would seem the likely trigger. Yet, a prevailing portentousness lingered and impressed upon him otherwise.

     “It’s okay, Buddy,” Andy whispers, gently stroking the hound’s fur. Regaining his equanimity, he hears tossing and turning coming from the adjoining room. “Karen must be all wound up from the meet,” Andy murmurs to Buddy. He places an ear to the wall and listens to Karen’s breathing; it gushes in irregular intervals in a manner instigated by effort. Moreover, the irregularity causes it to resound in a register lower than Andy was accustomed to hearing. Before long, no sounds reach Andy’s ears; Karen’s bed sits motionless; she has settled. Or has she? Next, footsteps make their way across the room. Karen’s bedroom door is pushed open and then settled back into place. Andy ceases breathing; his ears connect to footfalls presently in the hallway. They do not stop at his door, as Karen’s familiar feet once did the night she discreetly delivered her perplexing note—instead, they unhesitatingly continue. Presently sitting atop his bed, blood drains from Andy’s limbs; the paralysis besetting him is akin to what one might experience when suddenly wary of their environs—every dimension of space and what occupies it he perceives as malefactions, distortions, clouds of mystery that loom as an insidious unknown; they cause him to sicken with confusion and fear. Then three sobering thoughts, once strenuously ambiguous, launch a revealing assault: Karen’s perplexing letter, the morning she ran crying toward the house, and a trip to the cornfield when Andy touched Karen, and she screamed, “Stop!”   

Book VIII

Who Weeps for Fallen Angels?

Emma Trumaine was born Emma Lynn Colby to Lawrence and Leila Colby in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Emma spent much of her childhood lost in the pages of novels. Her literary ambitions were the writings of Frances Hodgson Burnett, Lucy Maud Montgomery, and Louisa May Alcott—female authors who could draw upon the essence of youthful female sensibilities to create heroines; thus, it was no surprise Emma read and reread The Secret Garden, Anne of Green Gables, and Little Women. Aside from journeying into the world of fictional narrative, Emma wrote one-act plays—she would perform these efforts for no one in the privacy of her bedroom—and crafted voices for her character inventions. Lawrence and Leila would tiptoe up the stairs and turn an ear to Emma’s bedroom door. Years later, they would confess their eavesdropping, citing Emma’s theatrical efforts as the most treasured part of her childhood.

     Lawrence and Leila lacked the means to send Emma to Catholic School, but agreed a Catholic upbringing was crucial. They enrolled Emma in catechism classes. Unlike her public school peers, who complained that the process of becoming full-fledged Catholics interfered with recreation, Emma embraced the doctrine: Loving your enemies, turning the other cheek, the concept of sin and redemption, and the illumination of revealed wisdom shining down upon the faithful in times of moral dilemma became core principles upon which rested her ethos.

     When the Colbys marched to mass, Emma wore dresses bought with scrimped funds whose allocation, Emma cried, should have gone to the poor. Meanwhile, Lawrence and Leila wore well-worn clothing.   

     Emma’s one-act plays became complex scenarios requiring the participation of another, and recruited Lucinda Hatch, at first an enthusiastic participant. Before long, Emma, “The director,” developed an artist’s temperament and became overbearing concerning expectations; it prompted Lucinda to cry, “I’m sorry that my acting isn’t up to your standards!”

     Lucinda’s interest waned. Emma turned from writing plays to essays. Initially, her love of God and her Redeemer provided the basis for her writings; next, Emma’s love of nature prevailed in themes, followed by romantic love—the progression spanned adolescence. It wasn’t until her high school years that Emma would discover her most affecting voice: she wielded the pen of an activist, and these cause-driven narratives brought her instant recognition; each essay appeared in the school paper; some saw their way into the local gazette and earned awards. Friends saw her destined to become a successful columnist of social critique, if not a novelist of note, crafting allegories denouncing hypocrisy and other human failings. 

     Emma was not the only pen-wielding Colby. Lawrence, a frustrated columnist, sweated out a paycheck editing for the Greensburg Tribune-Review, a newspaper circling in the eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh. A quiet, mild man of urbanity and culture, Lawrence, after dinner, with Emma hammering away at her studies, would retire to the parlor, light a pipe, and spin Schubert on a phonograph. For years, Schubert’s opuses echoed throughout the Colby home; thus, in an era when Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly were the rages, the notes etched in Emma’s head, culturizing the Colby evenings, came from works with such names as Death and the Maiden, Gretchen am Spinnrade, the andante con moto of the Unfinished Symphony, and Schubert’s Quintet in C Major, a recording featuring Isaac Stern and Pablo Casals. The latter became Barbara’s favorite: the sublime passages of the first movement, allegro ma non troppo—rich with fragile expressions of pathos and joy—she would hum unwittingly throughout the day. 

     Emma’s senior year, Leila scrimped and surprised her family with tickets to see the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra on a night they performed the music of the Great Austrian Composer. Lawrence nestled between his two treasures. They locked arms while the glorious strains of Schubert’s Ninth Symphony washed over them. Lawrence described the evening as “An experience of a lifetime.” 

     The following morning, Emma ignored her summons to breakfast. Locked in her room, not calling for a morsel of food or refreshment, she composed her next essay: If the World Could Hear Schubert.It was a poetic opus whose cadence flowed such that one could have set to music: Doubtless, Emma had a theme of the great composer in her mind when her pen strokes went whisking across the page. The essay, although edging toward the abstract, many interpreted as a condemnation of war stemming from the conflict between the hunter/gatherer and settler and the perversity of ideological demagogues and land grabbers while praising not romantic love, but man’s capacity to love as a divine gift and the tragic consequences should the gift get squandered. Some assumed the tensions between the U.S. and the Soviets sparked Emma to compose what many dubbed “The Peace and Love Piece.”  In closing, it read: “If, at once, the world could hear Schubert, maybe then she would lay down her swords.” The word “she” was poignant. “She” is depicted as a ship whose aspirations were calm seas but required love to guide her through raging storms. The essay made the school paper, a local gazette, and was posted on school bulletin boards outside the main office, gymnasium, and cafeteria. Faculty heaped praise on Emma. As always, she deflected the praise onto her parents. Many boys, the ruddier athletic types, had difficulty with the essay and referred to it as Radical progressive claptrap. 

     “You can’t lay down your sword and trust an enemy you can’t see will do the same,” one opined. “I don’t care what kinda music is playing.”

     “Maybe we should airmail a copy of this horseshit to Khrushchev and see what he thinks,” taunted another. “That’s just what America needs, an army of Emma Colbys. But who knows, maybe our enemies will die from smiling too much?”

     Someone went so far as to deface a bulletin by scribbling the words Bullshit by a nutty pacifist.

     Emma didn’t mind others challenging her views—what was the point of expressing opinions, especially in print, if not to invite discourse? —she would have welcomed open debate. What got her rankled were challenges triggered by ignorance and hostility from those incapable of taking ideas to task without crucifying their advocator.

     “At least I have the courage to put my name to my words,” Emma cried. “The person who scribbled on this board was a coward.”

     “I agree.” The voice startled Emma; it was unfamiliar. “You can’t expect to win everyone over at once.” A resonance of calm and reason settled. When Emma turned her gaze upward, clutching the defaced essay, she noticed the jacket and school colors. The voice of reason belonged to a varsity athlete. “Give ‘em a chance,” he added. “One day, they might surprise you.” 

     Skepticism was ostensible in Emma’s mien as she set her eyes on the handsome figure in the varsity jacket. “You know us dumb jocks,” he continued. “We’re all warriors; it takes the right girl to tame us.” What followed words of self-deprecation was an artful wink and a winning smile. What came next was Emma Lynn Colby falling for the charms of Ted Trumaine.

     Like many on the varsity football team, Ted Trumaine cared nothing for If the World Could Hear Schubert but had designs on a girl widely considered the prettiest of the intellectuals. And what better way to curry favor with a girl than to admire her most cherished asset? It’s especially effective when you’re the only member of a sect expressing a charitable opinion.

     “He swims against the current on my behalf,” Emma crooned to her friends. “It’s admirable.”

     “Eventually, a fella must settle down,” Ted told his teammates. “You can’t piss away your life laying halfwits; a silly girl might give you stupid kids, and who wants stupid kids?” 

     Emma’s popularity soared with the notoriety of her essay and a varsity athlete wooing her. The quiet, reserved, and insightful girl, who embraced the virtues of Catholicism and sought inspiration in Schubert, became the toast of her school. Though serving her well when wielding a pen for a cause, Emma’s insightfulness betrayed her when the issue was romantic love. Emma wasn’t alone in falling victim to Ted’s charm: Lawrence and Leila Colby would follow.

     Insincerity aside, Ted was well-groomed, attractive, and, atypical of a “dumb jock,” had enough curiosity to pose as a thinker. The clincher? Ted was Catholic. The other attributes mattered, but his Catholic upbringing delighted the Colbys. Come Sunday morning, Ted found his way to a pew. How were Lawrence and Leila to know Ted was a lapsed Catholic who had not set foot in a house of worship since confirmed? Then the inevitable happened, as it often does when the charms of one steer another off course. And it would have mattered not were they set to the notes of Schubert lieder: the words “I’m pregnant” didn’t resonate with anywelcome.

     “What about college? Your scholarship?” Lawrence Colby slumped in a chair and buried his beleaguered head in his hands. With a hand clutching Lawrence’s shoulder, Leila remained erect, but her mien failed to conceal her dismay. 

     Jolts take time to absorb; bad news is a process. Days filled with brooding and consternation passed before Lawrence and Leila sat with Emma and Ted and formulated a plan. They agreed that being several miles away, at a university, while pregnant was unwise. Emma would attend a local college, Ted would work as planned, and the newbie, after it arrived, would spend their days with Leila; thus, a situation once alleged a calamity had a semblance of tidiness.

     Ted, no fan of his own folks, resisted the Colbys assuming control of his life. The baby spending days with Leila, Ted didn’t dispute: it was the part that saw Emma “skip off each day,” as he described, “to her cushy college to write silly essays she thinks will change the world, while I work my fingers raw in a steel mill,” for which the father-to-be had little appreciation.

     Ted and Emma were ushered to the altar in August before the hint of a baby bump prompted gossip. The newlyweds moved into an apartment Ted assumed was far enough across town. Time passed. Ted worked his way to a better position at the mill and became an ample provider, but one who alleged that the gap between the Colby home and the Trumaine apartment had narrowed: he had grown decidedly tired of the “Meddlesome Colbys” reminding his wife, “It’s never too late for college.” 

     Before Emma could forge an initiative to recapture past ambitions, she was again with child. A second pregnancy marked Emma’s handy excuse for rejecting the dream of college and a career; it masked the truth that she was helpless to confront a controlling husband who kept her wings pinned to her side.

     Ted whisked his soon-to-be family of four north to New Castle. Tragically, the son he prayed Emma would bear him, whom they planned to call Timothy, never drew a breath outside the womb. Sadness was made unbearable by Ted’s withdrawal; he spoke not to Emma or three-year-old Karen. Emma interpreted the strained silence as Ted’s method of assigning blame. Timothy was her fault: Her inept, miserable body betrayed her husband; it robbed him of a long-anticipated joy. Emma witnessed the recrimination in Ted’s eyes and the language of his indifferent body; its pervasiveness made no effort to obscure that Timothy was Emma’s failure exclusively. Emma must have done something wrong or inadvisable; thus, the weight of guilt mustn’t be a shared initiative in any proportion but rest squarely on her shoulders.

     Ted’s levied assaults marked the underpinnings that ushered in a period of psychological brutality; it caused Emma to have bouts of inadequacy and made her easier to control. Ted would launch an assault, and Emma, her spirit frayed, would accept all blame, grovel for the right to bear it, and then reach out to make amends. It wasn’t until Emma stared down a precipice, her soul vanquished, that Ted, with his varsity charm, would reel her in and reduce her to a schoolgirl grateful for whatever pittance of attention he spared. Ted Trumaine may not have spoken with his fists the way his father had, but his brand of warfare was far more damaging.

     The sting of Timothy lingered, but its acuteness would subside and allow periods of civility to flourish. During these spells, Ted didn’t froth with affection but stopped tacitly blaming Emma and acknowledged Karen when it suited him. What little intimacy occurred was initiated by Emma. Emma carried the burden of owing Ted a son. Years passed, and Karen, who learned to beg for her father’s affection, turned ten. Barbara failed to conceive. Despite being well-endowed with youthful beauty that hadn’t shown signs of fading, Ted grew increasingly indifferent toward Emma. Karen had turned twelve the first Saturday she banished herself to her bedroom. With timidity, Emma approached Ted with the idea of adopting a boy. “Perhaps one Karen’s age,” she brightly intoned. “She’ll be less lonely, and so will you.”

     Emma expected to weather a storm for daring to propose so bold an idea. She had outlined the benefits beforehand. To her surprise, the predicted storm didn’t rage. Ted’s agreeableness, though enigmatic, Emma well appreciated. Still, Emma deemed it necessary to cite the numerous ways the presence of a twelve-year-old boy could benefit their family: “Karen would have a peer, and he would be the perfect age to be a buddy for you. Think of all the fun you could have with a boy that age and in the years ahead.” Emma raised to her tiptoes and affectionately pecked Ted’s cheek.

     Once they launched the initiative, Ted eclipsed Emma and took the praise; it was Ted’s “executive decision” that allowed for what many alleged was an act of magnanimity. Emma couldn’t have cared less about whose benevolence was credited for conceiving the brainchild, so long as Ted remained a willing partner. What Ted didn’t know, nor would he ever, was Emma’s motive. How could a man so controlling, so filled with the rot of human disdain and arrogance, imagine, wittingly or otherwise, that someone of Emma’s character could manipulate him into the role of coconspirator to thwart his own insidiousness? Partly from desperation, Emma’s conscience placed her at the edge of an abyss, where prevailed the theory that introducing another human entity—Timothy, all grown up—into their tormented sphere could prevent, discourage, or distract Ted from entering Karen’s room.  

*****

     Soon, the worst of nights will hasten a new dawn. What would it bring? Andy’s conscious thoughts bridge time with inexhaustible anguish. To breathe proves exerting; his ravaged body cannot override its partner, the mind. The night won’t pass kindly. In instances when deeply traumatized, the monistic principle of existence cannot protect us from the world of transgressions; instead, it forces us to lie awake, alone, in darkness, to ponder aspects of human failings no omnipotence should allow.

     Dawn arrives; Andy races to be out of doors before his nostrils fill with the rot of unwanted knowledge, his lungs with effluvial residue before suffocating. He leashes Buddy before the hound can curl outside Karen’s bedroom door. They dash into open spaces, free to roam and taste a measure of separation from impossible truths. Who was leading is unclear, but legs have memory; thus, they arrived at Neshannock Creek. Andy sprawls his lankiness on the bank; Buddy, sitting beside him, hunches over and nuzzles his snout against Andy’s chin. Andy takes Buddy’s face in his hands. When gazing into the hound’s eyes, he cries, “Everything’s screwed up!” Next, Andy throws his arms around the statuesque creature, who had long since developed an intuition as to why a particular door remained closed. “You knew all along, didn’t you?”   

     Andy stared into a fittingly gray sky. Yesterday, he was the toast of his team—Coach Squirek’s golden boy—but a long night and ominous dawn sent his spirit plummeting to a depth, not even Little Joe’s death had sent it. He was in no hurry to get home. When he arrived, he opened the back door just enough to allow Buddy to pass, and off he went; his legs carried him to the playground on Jefferson Street, where he knew Davy Shaw and Panda would soon meet.

     “Mind if I run with you today?” he asked.

     “If you think you can keep up,” said Davy Shaw. “In other words, try and keep us in your sights; we wouldn’t want you to get lost.”

     It surprised Andy that he could summon a smile. 

     “At least out here, on the road, he can’t lap us,” said Panda.

     Andy missed his friends. Team practices made working in the good old-fashioned recreational running he once coveted difficult. He felt fortunate for Davy and Panda.

     At the end of their circuit—the grounds on Jefferson Street—who should be awaiting them, clad in attire suitable for Saturday night at a disco, but Conner Livingston. “Why, if it isn’t Mr. Mile,” he snidely greeted Andy.

     “Condescending prick,” murmured Davy Shaw.

     “Pay it no mind,” Andy told Davy. “He can’t help himself.”

     With a girl on his arm, Conner strutted about like a peacock. The runners ignored him. Home, Andy noticed Ted’s Impala wasn’t in the driveway. Ted had gone, but to where? Andy cared not to guess. Karen’s whereabouts required no guessing. Buddy, despite a break in routine, curled outside Karen’s bedroom door. One remained: Emma. But it was Karen Andy ached for, to coddle her as one might an ailing child or wounded animal. But what comfort could Andy provide? What words might he speak? He wallowed in an unsatisfying limbo, waiting for the earth to swallow him up or a cosmic event so grand in scale it would reshuffle the universe, transmogrifying the unkind to benevolent.

     Emma was right where Andy suspected, on her knees, her hands in soil: Emma, the good shepherd to the rich earth God was kind enough to provide, shielding herself from truth with theism and dirt.  

     Andy stole up from behind Emma and observed delicate hands he trusted as an extension of a worthy spirit. When Emma rose to gain a broader perspective of her efforts, she felt a hand clutch her shoulder.

     “Andy?”

     Despite Emma’s certainty, her entreaty resonated feebly. 

     “Yes.”

     The graveness in Andy’s tenor unnerved Emma. There arose a shudder, though it was unclear whether it was Andy’s hand or Emma’s shoulder serving as conductor.

     Hunching over and pecking a cheek before liltingly intoning, “Hi, Mom,” had become the custom. Andy touching Emma in this new way manifests as an unwelcome aberration, conveying the thrill of danger and the misery of truth. Warily, Emma tilted her head and shifted her eyes to better view the hand holding her in place, forbidding her to move and denying an escape—its authority unassailable, or so Emma perceived. Emma grew warier yet of the words that might accompany the aberration; she imagined Andy’s fingers were digging into her shoulder and making deep impressions. She gasped. Though grave, Andy’s reply of “Yes” was no affirmation but an entreaty, a faltering invitation for Emma to speak. Andy sensed Emma’s slender form shrinking beneath the power of his grip.

     “Son?”

     Emma tried to avert a foreboding timbre. Her effort followed a period of hesitation; the elapsing seconds lingered as might ominous clouds choking the ether, making the task too daunting. Andy yielded to the clouds, allowing them to fester,  suffocate, and liberally gather balefulness, for he could summon no words. Inside, Emma twisted and pleaded, Say it! Get it over with, or let me be!  

     Andy removed his hand from Emma’s shoulder and let it fall limply at his side. What traumatized Andy for one sleepless night had burdened Emma for many; it crushed her spirit and introduced a depth of pain no amount of dirt or theism could obscure. How had Andy failed to notice? It was with empathy that Andy gazed upon the fragility that was Emma Trumaine. He was inclined to back away, remain silent, utter no words, and allow a sordid affair—impelled by whatever forces are responsible for keeping order in the universe—to sort itself. Then, as if from nowhere, the words “How long” were sent forth into the ether. For Andy, a sense prevailed that these harrowing words echoed from an unseen presence. So soft and gentle came the utterance, “How long?” Its wistfulness was designed to caress a breeze, thus sparing another its impact. The evocation reached Emma’s ears in a clamorous assault—it saw her equilibrium falter; she staggered away from Andy.

     Bent and twisted, Emma barely managed her feet before crumbling. And then she wept. She cried out through the bitterest of tears for those who enshrouded her in love long ago—how Emma ached for the home of her childhood, to once again hear the strains of Schubert coming from the adjoining room where sat her adoring father and sense her mother’s love and presence. She wept for her childhood, a life once promised, the stolen joys of motherhood, and the child she bore who survived. She wept as if she might weep for an eternity, just as God, for the sake of mankind, has wept for all eternity.

     It is rare to witness the fracturing of a human soul,  a destroyed person unraveling. Andy knelt beside Emma and stroked her hair. He hadn’t any words of comfort to offer, only a meek action. Bent, broken, her teary face pressed to Andy’s knee, Emma seemed small, childlike, with the frailness of a waif for whom no measure of protection would suffice.  

     “I’m sorry,” Emma cried. “I’m sorry I brought you into this madness. I thought once you arrived, it would stop. Instead, it got worse. It kept getting worse!”

     How often is one told their life is a fabrication based wholly upon the insidious reality of others? Concerning such a concept, Emma told Andy, “You’re not alone. All our lives are fabrications based on the reality of others, and often, those ‘others’ are wicked. God gave us free will and rectified the mistake by sending a Redeemer. But not everyone is redeemable.” Andy sensed Emma alleged herself irredeemable. “I love you,” she cried. “As much as Karen and my son, who never drew a breath, I love you. You’re more than I deserve.”

     Andy reached down and raised Emma’s chin. Pressing Emma’s face to his chest, Andy told her, “Don’t worry; I’ll take care of everything.”

     An impassive assurance would best describe the spirit of Andy’s words. Though they gave Emma a chill, she didn’t question their intention.  

     The portentousness that loomed began to ease. As the clouds dispersed, the lightness of being that confession can bring prevailed. And though absolution was nowhere on the horizon, as Emma’s ragged arms hung loosely at her sides, she could draw a breath without her viscera tying itself in knots. Next, as they had numerous times, a young man and his adoptive mother hunkered beside one another, working a gift known as earth until sundown—their spirits lightened with theism and dirt.

     On Sunday morning, Andy grew restless, awaiting Karen’s appearance. He slept fitfully, worrying about how to glimpse Karen descending the stairs. How could Andy help but view Karen differently? Yet, should Andy divert his eyes, it could trigger suspicion; he didn’t want Karen sensing any awareness on his part.

     Karen took her seat at the breakfast table. Silk-spun brown hair tinged with gold hangs prettily about a pleasing face and grazes the tops of womanly-soft shoulders; a carefully placed ribbon mingles well with luxuriant strands; skin glows as might a fairytale beauty’s awakening from a lengthy repose—Karen’s morning greeting lilts as though the words, on command, frolic in the air. Andy swells with admiration.

     Save for Karen, who is a morning chirper, the Trumaines are quiet throughout breakfast. Each is aware of a specific truth but ignorant that all know it—the latter would require a boat rocker, someone willing to trade implicit malevolence for chaos. Emma and Andy exchanged glances and then resumed eating. 

     Andy utilized whatever recreation and tasks were handy that fell within the range of normalcy to keep ample space between himself and Karen. His romp with Buddy was lengthier than usual. He met teammates at the Jefferson Street grounds and cranked up the mower in the late afternoon. It was twilight when he took a sponge and bucket of suds to Ted’s Impala. Still, from daybreak to darkness, the length of a spring day, Andy longed for Karen; he wanted to whisk her away to his cornfield. They would lie in a row, and he would utter words of healing. But he had nothing to offer.

     “Good job,” said Ted. 

     Go to hell, Andy thought, though an impassive “Thanks” had sufficed.

     Andy found himself at the receiving end of Coach Squirek’s wrath at Monday’s track practice.  “Truman (the mispronunciation was purposeful), are you going in reverse, or what?” the coach bellowed.

     A 4:21 mile was no disgrace, but not near the times Coach Squirek had grown accustomed to Andy turning in. Beckoning Kirk Schumacher to his side, he growled, “Find out what the hell’s eating the kid. He’s twenty-three seconds off his time. No piece of tail is worth twenty-three seconds!”

     Kirk chauffeured Candi Holloway to her front door before heading to 18 Court Street. Karen went inside, leaving Kirk and Andy to romp about the backyard with Buddy.

     “Any progress?” Kirk asked. Andy nodded feebly. “I was certain the love bug bit you.” Andy frowned. Kirk reminded him, “You were off your time today, not just a few seconds. Coach was betting on girl trouble. So was I. What else could get under a guy’s skin to where he underperforms at what he loves doing best?”

     Andy knelt beside Buddy and placed an affectionate arm around the hound. He couldn’t bear to look Kirk’s way when he uttered austerely, “Something’s happening in that house, and it’s only happening to Karen.” Andy’s gaze was vacant; it pointed to some vague and distant place. Kirk also dropped to a knee; his arm found Buddy. “Are you sure?” Kirk wasn’t challenging Andy; his tenor rang with incredulity. Moreover, Kirk knew that Andy’s voicing such an implication was akin to proof. “We need to act,” Kirk said. 

    “Karen isn’t aware that I know. It’s anyone’s guess what’s whirling inside her head or how fragile she is. I have to be careful; her becoming aware that I know could yield a result worse than the truth.”

     “Doubtless,  you’re risking a strong reaction, but it doesn’t change the fact we need to intercede before the girl we know and love is lost for good.”

     “It’s funny,” Andy began. He paused and grew pensive. Kirk sensed his detachment.

     “What’s funny?” Kirk pressed.

     “…What goes through a person’s mind once they learn the truth.”

     “Hey, kiddo, remember, the world doesn’t turn right-to-left; you can’t blame yourself that you didn’t know or see it coming.”

     “It started before I arrived.”

     “Come again?” Kirk added up the time since Andy arrived from Saint Pete’s.

     Two incredulous sets of eyes remained pinned on 18 Court Street, their owners pondering the improbability of a bud of such delicacy flowering and revealing splendor despite being fertilized with malevolence. 

     Kirk got to his feet. Andy called to him as he walked away. “I’m gonna run better tomorrow.”

     Turning, Kirk said, “I know you will.”

     Andy ran better the next day, the day after, and so forth. His recorded times of 3:58, 3:55, and 3:54 became numbers of legend and traveled beyond the school and town. Throughout the county, his times became as familiar as the Pirates’ batting averages and career-rushing yardage of Franco Harris. Friday, he obliterated another field of milers. When Andy stepped onto the track—this long, gangly young man with a banana-shaped face, conspicuous ears, and knees and elbows that required a generous portion of space—his competitors sensed a preternatural quality and that they were competing for second place. He spotted his cheering section in the bleachers when he stretched before the race. He managed to capture Karen’s gaze and waved.

     “Do you think he was waving at me?” Candi Holloway cried.

     “Of course he was,” Karen lied. That Karen was among the crowd and had it in her heart to cheer, Andy found far more remarkable than what was about to take place on an oval course. From it, he drew more inspiration than needed. The race was typical for the first half lap; Andy’s strides resembled those of a spindly-legged newborn wildebeest doddering about the Serengeti. At what point the doddering wildebeest finding its sea legs transitioned to an adult antelope was hard to say—there always seemed a sleight-of-hand element to the transition—but when it happened, around whose neck the first-place medal would dangle was never in question.   

     The afterglow of victory was still apparent when it came time for Tell Us About Your Day, hosted by The Ringmaster himself, Ted Trumaine. As always, Karen was the first contestant. Andy paid little attention to Karen’s painstaking monologue, though it finally occurred to him the game’s object; the enlightenment chased away all remnants of afterglow. Ted wanted to be made aware of everyone who played a role in the lives of his wife and daughter, everyone with whom they had an encounter, an exchange; thus, should he notice anyone, be it a friend, neighbor, teacher, grocer, paperboy, or mailman, looking at him guilefully, disgustfully, or averting their eyes, he would have good reason to suspect that someone within the walls of the kingdom betrayed the king.  

     Sensing Andy’s rage, Emma unnecessarily cleared her throat. Next, an ironical look came over Andy; it prompted Emma’s face to twist in confusion. How was Emma to know that Andy imagined Karen casually asking Ted if he planned to breach her threshold north of midnight so she would know whether or not to construct a Saturday agenda? It amused Andy, the contrast between Karen’s sober matter-of-factness and Ted’s astonishment as it played out in his head.

     Andy and Emma tried to signal Karen not to mention the track meet, lest they would get treated to another heroic episode in the illustrious high school football career of Ted Trumaine. Karen, failing to pick up their vibes, flowed nimbly into describing Andy’s resounding victory. Then it came, as it always had, seemingly with more painstaking detail than ever, how The Ringmaster made a shoestring tackle to preserve a victory over Wilson. What followed this near-intolerable episode of self-aggrandizement was an address on the subject of football as it pertained to the virtues and cohesion of “team sport.” Andy kept his attention on his plate while Ted, behind a mask of amiability,  concealing raw antagonism, diminished Andy’s historic margin of victory.     

     It was time for the next contestant. To remind Emma that the day of reckoning was not buoyantly lingering on a distant horizon but upon them, Andy glared her way. Don’t falter! Don’t be made a child! Emma began with a stammer, her body twisting and constricting. Eyes she interpreted as disdainful, that knifed through her and was tearing her to shreds, screamed Coward! The tacit accusation tormented as it echoed in Emma’s head. Her piteous gaze cried: I’m aware that I’m pathetic, wretched, and being humiliated; I beg you, don’t make it worse. Andy looked away. He learned a week ago what Emma had known for years: evil creeps into men capable of surreptitiously lurking among the unsuspecting. What sense was there in an upstart hero reminding the beaten and broken that they were beaten and broken? 

     For what seemed an eternity, Emma agonized, pretended, cried to no one, and prayed to her God. What once served as a spine had long since splintered, and all that stood between Emma spiraling into an abyss was a girl for whom she had not the strength to speak and a boy she prayed would. When gazing at Andy, Emma sensed an end was near.    

     Shortly after dinner, Ted took a newspaper and a bottle of beer to his recliner. He abandoned the paper at the first pitch of the ballgame. The game was an inning old when he realized he was watching alone.

     “Game’s on,” Ted yelled up the stairs to Amdy.

     “Be there in a minute, “Andy called back.

     The game was close until the Pirates exploded for five runs in the top of the fifth. After six complete, the Pirates were ahead 6-3 behind John Candelaria. In the seventh, the Bucs went to the bullpen, bringing in the intimidating Goose Gossage to relieve. Ted never saw the gangly fireballer toe the rubber. Andy watched three scoreless innings; thunderous snores drowned out the telecast. Afterward, Andy paced the living room, occasionally stopping at the recliner to gaze down at Ted; the snoring man’s shoulders were slumped, his mouth slightly agape.

     Some time, north of midnight, the eyes of the snoring man will peel open. He will feel revived but enshrouded with enough haze to make his deviance seem venial. Then he’ll tiptoe up the stairs. In the hallway, he will bypass the door on the right, behind which sleeps a broken woman, and proceed to the second door on the left. But first, it would be Andy, south of midnight, who climbs the stairs. He’ll make for the first door on the left, where Buddy awaits him. Stroking the Foxhound’s fur, he whispers, “Rest, Buddy.” Andy falls into a deep sleep, though it isn’t his intention. His goal was to remain awake, alert to where he was conscious of every interval and every pulsation in his body, but the emotions of what proved a fraught week subdued him.  

     Subconsciously, Andy senses the night is slipping away. He rouses with a start—his body lurches to a sitting position, well-blanketed with exudation. He fears he has squandered an opportunity. How much longer can he bear the burning in his viscera—the protracting of a rock-hard resolve designed to carry out a specific task before capitulating to the strain? He sags. A sound distracts him no sooner than his horizontal body contemplates the gravity of failure. The sound is typical, one that gets swallowed up by a menagerie of other daytime noises, the conscious mind decides too inconsequential to decipher; it is an extended footrest of a recliner recessing into place. Next heard is tiptoeing on the stairs—the sound of someone trying not to make a sound, yet each portentous step is more amplified than the last. The crescendo, as it whirrs in Andy’s ears, is akin to the urgency of birds and insects gathering store before the onset of a storm.

     Stealthy footsteps cross a hallway. Next comes the clicking sound of Karen’s bedroom door settling back into place. On the edge of his bed, Andy regards his trembling hands. He shakes them as one might before involving oneself in a task requiring steadiness. On his night pants, he purges his hands of the moisture he failed to anticipate. He is on his feet. Slipping past his door, which he had purposely left ajar, he positions himself at the threshold of what too often passed for a sanctuary. He is not as poised as he had hoped.     

     For days, in the moments not spent running, Andy envisioned himself as an unflinching interceder but had blotted out what he might witness beyond Karen’s door; his mind’s eye forbade him from conjuring acts of depravity. In a darkened hallway, the notion that he could wilt from revulsion becomes a prevailing concern.

     Andy closes his eyes and imagines Karen at breakfast, in the bleachers, in the cornfield—ribbons in her golden-brown hair, sunlight drenching her face, dirt on her shirt—and before he could realize it, the doorknob is twisting in his hand. Inching open the door, he feels every bit an interloper, a violator; not before tonight had he set foot in Karen’s room; his eyes had yet to penetrate Karen’s domain. He had long since stopped theorizing the reason, resigning to the notion it was an unbroachable subject never meant to yield satisfaction.  

     His form, in totality, settles in Karen’s doorway, opposite a double window above Karen’s bed. Even in darkness, with only the benefit of a streetlamp and moonglow breaking through panes, Karen’s room—a space symbolizing days of early innocence—reveals an unendurable reality that Andy is standing within walls belonging to a child, one whose paradoxical nature characterizes him as a violator of unpardonable boldness. What right has he to pierce a domain one has struggled to preserve?  And what of Emma, the good shepherd of the earth, who, with her whole heart, loves a God whose omnipotence falters at Karen’s door but permits a transgressor? Unlike the God of free will, Andy mustn’t falter but endure the unbearable contradiction of innocence and human rot.  

     Andy positions himself to the left of Karen’s bedside. He succeeds in resisting a downward glance at the odious impiety blanketing Karen and repelling any sound it makes. Gazing into the panes of windows adorned with the frills of youthful femininity, he envisions an overjoyed mother settling a newborn into the cradling arms of a proud father. Shaking the image from his head, Andy glimpses Karen’s face, touched by the subtle illumination of moonlight. It has only been hours since Karen—a proud sister, loving friend, and admirer—cheered him from the bleachers. That’s my brother! Beginning with tonight, Andy counted, backward in time, the many nights of torment—too many nights. From torment to days lying in a cornfield, embracing an orphan, offering friendship, frothing with sisterly love, and returning to torment: who was Karen Trumaine? How could such a creature live and breathe?

     It was no hallucination that Karen glimpsed what she suspected was Andy in silhouette; his looming length in darkness was imposing. Piercing the darkness, Karen searched for Andy’s eyes. When their gazes met, a rarified moment both symbiotic and transcendental transpired. Briefly, Karen closed her eyes. She reopened them to a locked gaze, carrying a message: God will understand.

     Andy forces himself to gaze upon the vileness of a monster—a fiendish creature. It isn’t novel curiosity or lust for the farthest limits of depravity feeding his impetus, but the need for incentive. Of the latter, Karen intuits; thus, she squeezes her lids over her eyes like a child anticipating a fright—an event that tends to recur in dreams.

     Few born into the world experience the sensation of plunging a knife into living flesh, its point piercing the skin’s suppleness, the blade tearing and separating tissue.  So violent and swift an act is the plunge, the only residual of the experience, possibly, is the surge of passion which impelled it, unless committed by a poised and purposeful hand. That Ted Trumaine was a creature barren of soul may have made the task less forbidding, but no less sickening; the plunge’s sensation would remain with Andy.

     Ted stiffened, his back snapping to an arch, with limbs rigid and pulsing. His body remained supported by its palms and toes; it seemed to assess whether it could move or if moving was advisable. Seemingly reacting to an explosion triggered by an unseen force, Ted flung himself across the bed; the movement was so abrupt and violent that Andy purported to have missed his mark, and Ted was about to rise against him. Warily, Andy stepped toward Ted. With the aid of moonlight, he assessed Ted’s form and his condition. Ted lay sprawled on his side, eyes bulging, the point of a knife visible through an aperture made by an astonished mouth, and much of what once coursed through his veins spilled liberally onto a blanket.       

     Who knows what, if any, ruminations run through a man’s mind when he has had a knife plunged through his nape and is seconds from expiring? The human mind is a psychological galaxy, its capacities largely unexplored. Perhaps Ted’s mind traveled back to the moment that conceived a monster: the fist of a man he never learned to forgive came crashing down on him, while a woman he could never forgive looked on with indifference. And what of Emma: the thievery of her life—a life ruled by psychological brutality? Aside from the worst transgressions—those committed against Karen—there was much for which to repent. But whether or not a mind belonging to a soon-to-be deceased body—a slain body—is capable of making peace with God is an unknowable matter.  With a mixture of relief, horror, and other emotions that would require years to sort, Andy and Karen look on as the man from Pittsburgh twitches, convulses, and dies.

     Karen—her face and neck spattered with blood—reflexively moves to the edge of the bed, away from a man who was every bit as gruesome in death as he was repugnant in life. Karen draws her knees to her chin and wraps her arms around her legs. Andy, as though the logistics of Karen’s room he had committed to memory, reaches for a velvet blanket neatly draped over the back of a child’s rocker and settles it over Karen’s shoulders, concealing her nakedness. Despite the warmth provided, Karen shivers below the soft velvet while Andy stands motionless, plagued by uncertainty. What would happen next? What had Andy envisioned beyond this moment? Unlike earlier, Andy and Karen’s eyes do not search the dark for one another. Moreover, words were not scarce but absent. The duration of many weighty seconds sees Andy’s fitful gaze pinned to a massacred Ted Trumaine. Meanwhile, Karen’s vacant eyes stare into an abyss. When Andy turns his gaze from Ted to Karen’s empty eyes and drained face, he sinks to his knees in dismay that he committed an act of unsanctioned vengeance, that the unbrokered authority over which he seized command was a well-disguised betrayal, one hideously mocking how forces manipulated him into out-sinning a sinner, tricked him into the role of the forsaken avenging angel whose heroism tipped the scales of cosmic justice from the insidious conventional to the terrifying unknown, consequently shattering a strained peace and in its stead erecting calamity. Moreover, no extrapolation gained from Karen’s startlingly vague mien revealed the contrary. Thus, it plagued Andy, the unsettling possibility that his eyes had betrayed him earlier, that a moment ostensibly symbiotic and transcendental in the breadth of its profundity was a fabrication, a lie, as, too, was the world. Woe is they who seek justice, as no good deed goes unpunished.

     Minutes become an hour—it is an inexorable consequence of an ever-expanding universe. Andy remains kneeling at Karen’s bedside. Whatever was to happen next, vicissitude aside, events seldom adhere to what the mind has scripted. Ted—sometime between the moment the knife entered his nape and his expiration—was supposed to experience a revelation, a cleansing moment of clarity that would see him gaze into Karen’s eyes and froth with contrition. In his waning seconds, Ted would spare a nod for Andy—an acknowledgment that the universe’s only pathway to recapture order was through the forfeiting of his life. Before Ted draws his final breath, a vestige of gratitude flickers in his eye that Andy has ended what Ted was powerless to end of his own volition. With the room reduced to two, Karen leaps into Andy’s arms and rejoices that a monster would torment her no more.  

     The night descends further in choking silence; it drags the souls of the withered. With no word resting on his lips he wishes to utter, Andy allows his eyes to rove a room that has remained unaltered since the early days of Karen’s youth: childhood books, toys, and dolls occupy a place of designation and are carefully preserved, so, when needed, Karen may revisit the sanctity of those early days—a place and time predating Ted’s visitations. The indulgence helped insulate Karen from the present.

     Andy’s eyes continued to roam until they fell upon Emma, standing in the doorway, posed with her hands clasped under her chin as she gazed across the room at a body that once belonged to a man whose charms were the personification of treachery. It was not the paralysis of shock that came over Emma when taking in the gruesomeness of the scene, but rather peace and resignation. Andy got to his feet and went to her side. Emma wrapped her fragile arms around one of Andy’s and rested her head against his shoulder. 

     “I’m sorry I brought you into this,” Emma said, her inflection matching the lifelessness of Karen’s face. “Maybe it wasn’t me. It was Him who works in ways mere mortals cannot explain.” 

     Why not cast blame at the feet of an entity not present in any palpable form to defend itself? But Andy wouldn’t have it: The primary motive that brought him to 18 Court Street might not have occupied a domain of purity, but he rejected, less reconciled, the theory that he, a twelve-year-old boy, was brought into their bosom to become Karen Trumaine’s avenging angel. No mother, irrespective of faith, would place trust in such a plan. And no God, free will aside, would permit ongoing depravity of such scale waiting for a boy to come of age; there were a thousand other ways Ted Trumaine could have met an end, and none required a God-appointed avenger or God placing an ill-conceived motive in the head of a broken woman. Of this matter, Andy was sure. He was also confident in owning an independent mind, and that his act, justification aside, hastened Karen beyond the threshold of her tipping point and enlightened Andy to how damaged she was. Andy set his gaze on Emma’s fragility, then over at Karen. He had exorcised their demon but not its stain. They were broken, and fixing them required powers Andy didn’t possess. 

     The air in the room grew oppressive; Andy’s sense of belonging waned. The former and latter urged him to run, but to where? There was no consequence in where; only gone and free mattered—gone and free from the force that had worked through him, compelled him, else he too might join the ranks of the broken. He reclaimed his arm from Emma and made for his room. He dressed and rifled through drawers.

     Emma stepped further into the room. She probed the vacantness in Karen’s eyes, hoping to spot a sign that the wreckage was salvageable. When Andy returned, Emma said, “It’s kinda early to run with Buddy.”

     Emma sensed that running with Buddy in the pre-dawn was not Andy’s intention. Reaching up, Emma put a gentle hand to Andy’s cheek. She struggled for words beyond the cry of “Please.” What followed were utterances of profound pathos, the most heartfelt she would ever express. She fell to her knees and cried, “You’re still my son… aren’t you?”

     Andy’s “I am” failed to rouse or inspire, impelling Emma to plead, “Please, tell me again!”  

     Andy’s utterance was no less dispassionate when repeated, and when he added, “But now I have to go,” the words themselves seemed to shove Emma aside. 

     “Where will you go?” It was a desperate attempt to remind Andy he was still a youth deprived of resources. From her knees, Emma threw her arms around Andy’s waist as though it was all that stood between herself and an angry sea and cried, “With my whole heart, I love you.”

     “I’ll be fine,” Andy assured her.

     “But I won’t!” The force of Emma’s cry sent her prone to the floor, a desperate hand reaching for one of Andy’s legs. As he had when Emma crumbled to the ground at the edge of her garden days ago, Andy knelt beside Emma and stroked her hair. “It isn’t goodbye forever,” he told her. He found Emma’s chin and raised it to press his lips to her cheek, then rose to his feet.

     “Andy, just a minute.” In an unexpected surge, Emma’s composure returned. She, too, rose to her feet. Gesturing at Ted’s body, she told Andy, “There’ll be no consequences. I won’t let it.”  

     Andy’s willingness to protect Karen overwhelmed any sense that rendering Ted lifeless would engender new circumstances. He exited the room with plodding backward steps, his eyes pinned to Ted, whose form in the approaching dawn was more visible. So too was the astonishment fixed on Ted’s face. It was the latter that captured Andy’s attention. Ted, his bulging eyes and open mouth, seemed to mock his executioner—a boy who, in the days leading up to the hour of reckoning, imagined himself a white knight—and to warn him that sin, although redeemable, does not afford impunity. Run, Andy! It’s what you do best!   

     Her back pressed to the wall and weeping over the collective depth of love, loss, ruin, and a life predicated on capitulation, Emma sank to the floor and listened to Andy’s footsteps gallop down the stairs. Next, she heard the door open and settled back into place. “Dear God,” she cried, “if You can hear me, take care of my son; keep him safe.” 

     And then there were two. Emma turned her attention to Karen, her bloodless face, vacant gaze, lips turning blue and cracking before Emma’s eyes: a young woman who, as a child, was forced to work for her father’s affection only to become the object of his deviance; a gentle soul who was gashed, scabbed over, and scarred; the tissue thickened, hardened, and then snapped from the strain. No mother could look upon what became of Karen Trumaine and not despise herself, and Emma was a mother.

     Quivering and weakened, Emma falters at Karen’s bedside. How does one beg forgiveness upon affirming oneself unworthy? With a warm cheek pressed to Karen’s cold feet, Emma murmurs words that resonate like a prayer. Karen feels a warm trickle of moisture on her skin and reaches down to touch her mother’s exposed cheek. Like one who had awakened from a dream, Karen asks, “Where’s Andy?” 

     The sun is rising. Daylight breaking through the window floods the room. The mere mention of Andy is sobering, as Emma had all but forgotten the body only an arm’s length away. Ted’s deadness seems insignificant.

     “Shhh,” Emma softly intones, “Andy will be fine,” then leaves to fetch a dampened cloth. Reentering the room, she wipes the knife’s handle, wraps her fingers around it, and returns to her prayerlike position at Karen’s bedside.

     “Andy will be fine,” she repeats, gazing at the dawn of a new day.

*****

     The setting sun yields to the summer twilight. Patti and Andy stand on the darkening shoreline of Lake Nuangola. Together, they had traversed the farthest reaches of Andy’s soul and had arrived at the complex question: Is there any beauty in truth, or must it reign as a suffocating entity that ossifies fragility, turns poets into cynics, and idealists into world-weary souls scouring the earth in search of malice? Often, Andy had diverted his eyes out at the lake and trees beyond; he needed reminding that he was no longer standing in the hall outside Karen’s bedroom door. Still, he had shuddered, for he could feel in his hand the hilt of a weapon, how firmly his fingers molded to its shape, and the force with which he brought the point of its blade down into the nape of Ted Trumaine. Again, Andy turned his gaze to the lake and the trees, anywhere but at Patti; he did not wish to see the distress and revulsion he was sure her mien would reveal. Freeing himself from her hand and gaze, Andy sidles to the shore’s edge and then sets his eyes upon the still water and remnants of twilight at the point where it made the top of the tree line delineable from the horizon. He wanted to let Patti be, to allow her time to sort the enormity of what he forced her to absorb before he uttered another word. Before long, Patti stood at Andy’s side. The distress and revulsion Andy suspected to have followed his account never manifested. With a bearing surprisingly unflinching, Patti vowed,“We’ll get through it. I swear it, we will.”

     Like a puff of air, the weight of torment lifted from Andy’s shoulders. Patti took hold of Andy’s hand. They knelt on the shore. What followed was her guiding his body so that it eclipsed hers. 

     “I want you to have me, Andy,” Patti whispered. “I want us to share all that can be shared so that no pain or fear can touch us.”  

     There were times, in the ensuing months and years, when Patti mentioned Karen’s name—sometimes in passing, but mostly to arouse emotions she suspected Andy still repressed. But that night, on the shore of Lake Nuangola, with nary a glimmer of twilight lingering, Andy turned the page, keeping an unwavering eye on the future.

Book IX

A Time Traveler’s Pilgrimage

The sun was setting; it would soon disappear and surrender to the coolness typical of a northern October evening.

     “Just three more pitches, Dad,” a youngster pleads.

     A hardball hitting a mitt is like music to a young boy’s ear. A father and son playing catch on a lawn under a setting sun is the nearest thing to perfection in a madding world. 

     “Three more pitches,” the father concedes to the young hurler.

     Before Young Ray delivered his next pitch, he stopped partway through his windup and asked, “Dad, was Roberto Clemente the greatest player of all time?”

     “He was the best player I ever saw.”

     “Better than Cal Ripken Jr.?”

     “Yep.

     “What about Mike Piazza?”

     “Him too.”

     “And Barry Bonds?”

     Before an answer is supplied concerning the former Pirate MVP, now San Francisco Giant, a second-story sash flies open. A voice calls down, “Don’t forget, you still have to pack a bag for tomorrow’s trip.”

     “One more pitch,” the young hurler cries, then reaches back, fires a ball that comes bearing in on one hop, skips off the catcher’s mitt, and rolls several feet away.

     “Error on the catcher!” Young Ray yells.

     “Wild pitch!” the catcher hollers back.

     Whether an error or a wild pitch, Buddy, lingering nearby, pounced on the ball. The dutiful Foxhound retrieved the errant projectile and dropped it in the pitcher’s mitt.

     “I know; that one didn’t count,” the catcher moans, abiding by his son’s rule that the final pitch must be a strike.

     The young hurler pounds the ball into his mitt as he stares down his nose at the catcher. As Young Ray twirls through his windup, the mind of his faithful receiver drifts back over the years, the decades, to a faraway place. He has a vision of a little boy, not much younger than his son. With great determination, the boy is angling toward a rolling ball and, with all his might, strikes it with his foot. In the next instant, the popping sound a hardball makes when it smacks leather resounds. 

     “Dad?” Young Ray cries.

     “Sorry. I forgot. Last pitch. Okay, kiddo, hum it in there.”

     “Dad!” Young Ray cried again, pointing to his father’s mitt. “I already threw it!”

     The catcher turns his mitt. The ball is sitting snug in its webbing.

     “Dad, are you okay?”

     “I’m fine,” the catcher says and urges the young hurler to run along and promises to follow shortly. The catcher remains kneeling in the cool grass for a spell and considers the elements that make up a composite known as “a good life” and what it means. He turns his gaze in the distance at the setting sun and watches it dip below the horizon. He whispers the words, “Little Joe.” 

     Over the past twenty years, Andy often told the story of the spring of 1977: A young man’s trek across Pennsylvania. As time passed, more subtle shades of the experience came to light. Patti never minded listening, nor did Andy tire of regaling her. Patti encouraged Andy to relive the journey, citing something that momentous in a young man’s life should be etched in memory, chronicled in detail: the characters encountered, names of places, lessons learned, every aspect leading to the journey’s end—a pinnacle that saw the blossoming of a love that has endured for decades—Patti wanted to be kept alive. After twenty years, Andy wondered at the improbability of it all.  

     Following the birth of Young Ray, the stories became more fantastic. Patti would roll an eye at the embellishments, then smile when she saw the wonder that came over her son. Afterward, she would warn the fabler, “If you’re not careful, there’ll come a day when you won’t remember the true account, and you’ll be stuck with the fiction.”

     Still, it amused Patti how far Andy could stretch the boundaries; his ability to weave fiction improved with each year of Young Ray’s childhood. Whereas many children are put to bed listening to the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen and The Brothers Grimm, Young Ray nestled in his trundle bed enraptured by yarns of Blue Skies and Corky Grimes, who, for the benefit of a three-year-old, was portrayed as a ripe old sage able to impart young men with life-affirming wisdom. Later, for a five-year-old, Corky was depicted as a kindly old wizard. Doc was an alchemist and sorcerer whose menacing eyebrows and sinister gaze possessed the power to frighten children into not speaking for years. And there were train rides with hobos to far-flung destinations… or were they heroes? Whichever, a given adventure ended with a night spent under the stars to a symphony of katydids, the chugging of a distant train, and a prayer. Then, just before his eyes drooped shut, Young Ray would ask, “Dad, was I the tiny child in your dream?” 

     “I was never afforded a peek at the child’s face,” Andy would tell Young Ray, “but there’s no reason to suspect it wasn’t you.”

     One night, Young Ray scampered across the hall. Bursting into his parents’ room, he climbed into their bed and nestled between them. “Did you have a bad dream?” they cried.

     “I dreamed of the nun that came out of the mist,” Young Ray told them gravely.

     “But she was a good nun,” Andy reminded his son.

     “I know she was, but in my dream, it was dark, and she looked scary.”

     Andy was packing an overnight bag in the bedroom when Patti said, “I heard you had an episode on the lawn earlier.”

     “It was nothing,” Andy lied.

     “Or something,” she pressed.

     “Either way,” Andy began with a dismissive wave, “it was a good thing he hit the mitt, or I’d have the mother of all goose eggs on my forehead.”

     Despite the best of intentions, Patti was beginning to regret pressuring Andy into making the trip, suspecting it had become a source of unwelcome stress. “Maybe you should call, “she proposed.

     “A phone call?” Andy cried. “After twenty years? What would I say?” Following a sigh, he added, “I can’t imagine anything more awkward than a phone call. Besides, I’m a guy; just the thought of picking up a phone gives me the willies.”

     “Is your plan, then, to sneak up on her and yell, ‘Hey, remember me?’ or to linger on the sidewalk hoping to get noticed, assuming she’ll recognize you, which, incidentally, she may not?”

     Andy’s forehead furrowed, his eyes narrowed, and his uttered words, “I don’t look any different than I did then,” resonated as a testy assertion that prompted Patti to laugh ironically. 

     It wasn’t just in recent days but years ago that Patti had urged Andy to seek Karen. It never seemed like the right time. As an upperclassman high schooler, cross-country and track reigned paramount; there was always a meet for which Andy needed to prepare, and between seasons, he trained to shave seconds off his times. Collegiate years presented the same obstacles. Then came a civilizational requirement the modern capitalist calls earning a living. Before long, Young Ray came bounding into the world.

     Nevertheless, Andy knew Patti was right and had been all along but put the initiative off until enough time had elapsed that simply imagining what he would say to Karen became a stressful affair. What does one say after hiding out in the hills of northeastern Pennsylvania for twenty years? How did I let so much time getaway? Why didn’t I listen to my wife years ago?  

     Andy had a wife who made him the envy of every man in town, a son, and a faithful dog—components that make up a life no orphan or castoff would dare dream of, else reality would seem cruel—but somewhere in the world lived a sister. Andy was in Karen’s life for a mere thirty months, qualifying as a spell or stretch juxtaposed to twenty years of separation, but when measuring the magnitude of affection shared, he was fooling himself by theorizing the passage of time could obliterate such equity.   

     Patti stepped out of the shower and posed in the doorway between the bathroom and bedroom. Sprawled atop the bed, Andy failed to sense Patti’s presence; his mind was elsewhere. Patti stood posing in the doorway, an observer searching for words to put in Andy’s mouth to infuse his confidence when motoring across the state. Finally, Andy felt Patti’s gaze. Once he turned to meet it, Patti allowed the towel to fall to the floor. Andy always had a weakness for Patti’s spontaneity.

     Drenched locks kiss the tops of well-formed shoulders; drips of water trail over and between breasts that have maintained their perkiness. The years have been kind to Patti. Often, she reduced Andy to the fifteen-year-old novice who once stood on the shore of Lake Nuangola. Patti would fondly acknowledge, “There’s nothing more flattering than your husband ogling you like a wide-eyed twelve-year-old who just discovered his first Playboy Magazine.”

    “Andy,” Patti began, her voice resonating huskily, breath warm and heavy in Andy’s ear. “Do you think we could make love just once without Buddy eyeballing us?” 

     “He likes to watch. Buddy’s a healthy male canine; it would be a sin to deny him the pleasure of seeing you naked.”

     “I thought only male cats got aroused at the sight of naked women.”

     “I must be a cat.”

     “You sly dog; I always suspected you were a tomcat.”

     Lying together, short of breath, and staring up at the ceiling, Patti said, “You’re not off the hook. What happened out there on the lawn tonight?”

     It wasn’t without some stammering that Andy admitted, “I had a vision.”

     “Not an ‘If you build it, he will come’ sorta vision, I hope? After all that Ray has done for us, I wouldn’t feel right asking him to plow under the nursery so you could build a baseball field.”

     “It was nothing like that; it was a vision of something that had already happened—something from long ago that I haven’t thought about since boyhood.” Andy shrugged and added, “Like I said, I’m fine.”

     The following morning, like most Sundays for the past twenty years, breakfast was at Ray’s and Laura’s, or what they referred to as the old homestead.

     Ray and Laura had appointed themselves guardians to Andy and Patti. Having the same surrogates gave their romance and subsequent marriage a peculiar twist. Patti would purposely baffle Ray and Laura by referring to Andy as a son-in-law. Andy would do the inverse.

     “I suppose it is kinda confusing,” Ray admitted.

     “It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, ‘My in-laws are coming for dinner,’” Laura added.

     Like most American families, the Salisbury/Trumaine clan was quirky and imperfect. Then Young Ray came bouncing into the world. When Patti realized she was with child, there was never an issue over what to name the baby: a boy would bear Ray’s name, a girl, Laura’s. The day his son was born, Andy went to Ray and told him, “I can’t begin to repay you for all you’ve done, but I can give you a living tribute.”

     Andy never tried to replace Peyton; his only aim was to work hard, do what he could to honor Ray and Laura, and make sure there never came a day they regretted taking him in.

     Just as he had in the western region of the state, Andy, with his splendid legs, earned the attention of the east. During his sophomore year of high school, he registered on the radar of every university with a notable track and field program. Following the 1979 season, he was invited by the AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) to Walnut, California, to compete in the 1,500-meter run. He departed Walnut as the odds-on favorite to represent the United States in the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow; his times rivaled Great Britain’s older, more seasoned Sebastian Coe. But his Olympic dream would not come true. President Carter issued an ultimatum: The United States would boycott the Moscow Games if the Soviets failed to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan by 12:01 a.m. Eastern Standard Time on February 20, 1980. The official decree didn’t come until March 21^st: No athletes would represent the United States in the Moscow games. The news crushed Ray, Laura, and Patti; Patti never fully overcame the disappointment. Although disillusioned that athletics became collateral damage concerning a foreign affairs entanglement, Andy remained pragmatic and sober, advocating: “For an orphan, I have an embarrassment of riches and thus no right to grieve over a lone disappointment.”  

     “We can’t have it all,” he would remind Patti. “The Olympics are a privilege, not a promise.”

     In 1984, Andy received an invitation to Los Angeles for the Olympic trials. His times, though good, didn’t impress as they had four years ago; it was by the slimmest of margins that he would miss qualifying. Perhaps too much happiness and contentment smoothed his competitive edge. Whatever the case, like the rest of America, Andy watched the Los Angeles Games from his home on television.

      In ‘86, he was offered a job in Wilkes-Barre, coaching a high school track team. He scrimped until he could drop to a knee and slide a ring onto Patti’s finger. With the exuberance children display when school lets out for the summer, Patti and Andy raced to the altar. “Where’s the fire?” Ray wanted to know. “Laura and I were engaged a year before we tied the knot.” Laura moaned that she needed time to prepare. They afforded her a week, and with it, Laura managed a backyard wedding. For a spell, married life found its joy in the home of Patti’s childhood. Before long, the newlyweds agreed that new memories required new walls and found a modest nook of land to erect them. Andy decided the house was too empty and came bounding home, cradling an eight-week-old Foxhound.

     “He’s adorable,” Patti cried before asking the predictable question, “How big will he get?”

     Andy hemmed and hawed, typical of a husband sensing his bride’s qualms over a given matter, then irresolutely squeezed out, “You know… kinda medium?”

     Patti mimicked his nonsensical faltering, then pressed, “And what, may I ask, is your interpretation of ‘kinda medium?”’

     “Not too big, not too small….”

     “Yes, Mr. Trumaine; that, by definition, is medium. But, what I wanna know: if you have trouble housebreaking this little muffin, are we talking cow pucks, or will it look like we have to call an exterminator for mice?”

     “On my honor, I’ll have him so well trained he’ll piss his name in the snow! And to answer your first question: seventy pounds.”

     “You’re grooming a running partner, aren’t you?”

     “You could say that.” A sly look came over Andy. Patti kissed him and said, “It’s good we have a dog.”

     On the morning of his departure, Andy rolled out of bed, leashed Buddy, and away they went, galloping to Ray and Laura’s. Patti and Young Ray would follow by car.

     The focus at breakfast was on Andy’s trip. “Doesn’t matter that you only knew her thirty months; that period was the worst of her life, and it’s right to think you were the reason she survived,” Ray theorized. “Even before you took care of her old man, just you being there, I’ll bet, was what saved her from ending it.”

     “Ending what?” asked Young Ray.

     “Adult talk,” Patti whispered to Young Ray. “We’ll talk later.”

     Ray’s pep talk aside, impotence plagued Andy when pondering Karen; his mind struggled to measure the magnitude of harm done to her and that bringing Ted to a swift end, however justified, proved anticlimactic and futile. That the destruction of Karen Trumaine saw its completion before that fateful night twenty years ago was a reality Andy tried to suppress in the farthest reaches of his mind while fabricating a bearable outcome. But Andy knew it was a tricky chasm that spanned the vanquishing of a demon and a demon’s lingering effects. Moreover, unlike the residue of a malefactor, Andy didn’t linger. Thus, he feared that if Karen survived and restored herself, the consequence of her improbable journey would be her despising him. With that weighing as a prospect, Andy considered leaving well enough alone and remembering the sweet girl who went about with ribbons and bows, had laid with him in a cornfield, and cheered from the bleachers. 

     “At the rate you’re second-guessing, you’re gonna talk yourself outa going before the butter melts on those hotcakes,” said Ray.

     “I’ve warned him for days,” Patti added. “About the trip, not the butter.”

     Andy excused himself from the table just as Bill Northrop climbed the steps to the patio. Bill was getting along in years, and although still of use, he described his employment status as “poking around.”

     “You’re a stubborn old coot,” Ray would tell Bill. Bill would retort, saying he came more for Laura’s cooking than any work that required his attention, but to draw a salary based on such a premise was preposterous. Bill was five years a widower and grateful that Ray kept the nursery going, though nowadays, all the ideas, planting or structural, flowed from Patti.

     “Hope you’re not leaving on my account,” said Bill.

     “Nope,” said Andy. “I’m leaving to prove I’m not chicken shit.”

     “In that case, good luck.”

     They watched Andy drive off. Buddy, too. Patti turned to Ray and Bill and asked, “What are you two grinning about?”

     “Cayuga Viburnum,” said Ray. Bill added, “We had a good vibe that boy was a keeper.”

     Andy missed the sign for Lock Haven. He had no plans to exit I-80 West at that juncture but wanted to take notice of the names of places he remembered from his journey. The monotony of the road wasn’t the blame but a vision that cast his mind adrift: He saw a child running, tiny arms swishing through the air. So diminutive yet determined was this youth, and when he neared his destination, others came into the vision; they cheered wildly. When the child arrived safely, his expression marked the essence of joy. Next came the whirring of rubber at high speeds from vehicles whooshing up and down the interstate. Andy patted his misty eyes and wiped moisture from his cheeks.    

     Further along, he agonized over what might lie in store in New Castle. The prodigal son returns: he departed his hometown a boy, returned a man, and was hailed a hero. He liked that one. But then the notion Karen never saw sixteen and Emma has waited twenty years to set upon Andy the most disdainful glare ever cast had beset Andy. There were other scenarios between the two extremes; most made Andy wish the drive was protractile, if not endless.

     It was neither, as evidenced by the sign that read Welcome to New Castle. Andy had traversed an imaginary threshold, having emerged fifteen and frightened. But grappling with a condition rendering him diminished and afraid would prove vain, for had Karen survived, New Castle, particularly 18 Court Street, would not be her chosen domain. Karen would have abandoned her childhood home and town at the first opportunity, offering nary a backward glance. Andy suspected the road to Karen would run through another and was confident of encountering someone who remembered a boy who ran himself into the record book and what became of his adoptive sister. Moreover, it would not surprise him to learn that Emma returned to Pittsburgh and her childhood home, where love, warmth, and the strains of Schubert awaited her. But a search must have a point of origin, and 18 Court Street was as good a place as any to begin.

     Andy drove first to Neshannock Creek, parked, stretched his legs on Banks Bridge, and hiked to his cornfield. It warmed him to see an old haven and that its stalks had yet to meet the plow. He felt his body pulsing. His mind became a receptor of waves, their frequencies playing two voices—his and Karen’s—raining with echoes he couldn’t escape, nor did he try, as he wasn’t ignorant of the emotional cost of returning to an old haunt. “My kingdom,” he muttered. To once again stand before his cornfield, less lie down in one of its rows, Andy could not have imagined, yet there he was, gazing up from the ground, admiring a strip of sky. Evocations from conversations of budding adolescents and young adults played in his head. He dissected them for missed clues, for Karen, encrypted her messages aside, must have screamed for help. Next, he hiked along the creek to where it formed the circular pool. Men, who had aged accordingly, had lines dipped in the water.

     Days before the trip, Andy stopped in a local music store for a Schubert disc. Be it a peace offering, icebreaker, or prop, he didn’t want to arrive with empty hands, and flowers seemed inappropriate, assuming he had anyone to whom to hand them. He stops in front of 18 Court Street. With his head pressed to the steering wheel, he swells with trepidation. A tooting horn startles him. To gain an active perspective of his old hometown before ringing doorbells, he must first feel his feet on the ground. He parks on another street. When he reaches the walkway leading to 18 Court Street, his eyes are drawn to a second-story window. What happened there? Men die in bed every day, but in whose bed do they typically perish? Something is wrong, appallingly amiss; someone must stop Ted and prevent him from committing horrific acts. Andy rings the bell; it seems an ill-conceived idea, triggering a faltering composure. How should he address Emma: Mom? Emma? Mrs. Trumaine? Too late; one cannot unring a bell.

     A woman appears at the door; she is Emma’s height and of a similar build. Andy summons his mind’s eye for an image of Emma and projects it twenty years into the future. Narrowing his gaze, he peers in at the woman, dumbly, perhaps rudely—it is unlike him to gawk in this manner, unwittingly or otherwise—and it compels the woman to intone, with justifiable indignation, “Can I help you?”

     “I don’t think so,” Andy told her. “I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

     “You’re a queer one,” the woman shot back.  

     “I’m guessing you’re not a fan of Schubert?” The woman responds to what she perceives as an inane non-sequitur by twisting her face into a sneer and then slamming the door shut. Before Andy hears a deadbolt slide into place, he hollers, “A murderer used to live in this house I’ll have you know!”

     “That went well,” he muttered to himself. He couldn’t explain why, but the hostile encounter helped him gain a firmer equilibrium and inspired him to ring doorbells and look up old friends; however, before he realized it, his feet had carried him back to his car, presently a buttress and all that stood between him and meeting the ground. The reason? He heard the footsteps of Young Ray tearing across the hall, echoing in his ear, and hands that have yet to develop finesse flinging open a door. It is a reaction to a bad dream. “But she was a good nun,” Andy reminds his son. Gone is all sense of being as it relates to Andy’s present whereabouts. He is weightless, lighter than air; his body lifts and is carried away on a breeze; it floats horizontally around the world and settles onto a grassy patch outside The Snow Shoe, where years ago he dreamed of a fiend, a guileless youth, and a shadow of the future. Alone in the wilderness, shivering in darkness he cannot pierce, the universe, at long last, flickers with a manifestation of objective truth.

     Because of its proximity to Court Street, Andy drove first to Saint Luke’s. He spoke to Father McKinley, who assured him that no sister once called Emma Trumaine currently resides or has resided at the convent since his arrival eleven years ago.

     “Maybe she arrived before you,” Andy pressed.  

     “I’m sorry,” said Father McKinley. “The woman you’re looking for isn’t here.” Andy walked away dejected. His ill feeling was momentary; he was confident that the destiny he had dreamed for Emma was not a fanciful whim but a firm reality. 

     “I must say, we don’t get many visitors requesting to speak to one of our sisters using their former name,” said Father Carroll of Saint Mary’s Roman Catholic Church—a Gothic revival structure erected in 1925 and the first Roman Catholic parish in the region.

     Father Carroll’s raised brow implied that he suspected this never-before-seen visitor to his church represented a tie to less virtuous times. It prompted Andy to admit, “It’s been a spell since I’ve seen Emma—years,” Andy explained. “I couldn’t guess how many years have passed since she entered the convent; our parting happened beforehand. In fact, it wasn’t until an hour ago that I realized Emma was a Catholic Sister.”

     “Interesting,” uttered Father Carroll, though fascinating was what Andy alleged him to have implied. Why, after years of estrangement, would learning that a woman obeyed a religious calling instigate a search? And by what means did this community outsider obtain this knowledge? They were legitimate questions the word “interesting” seemed to pose.  

     “Would you believe me, Father, if I told you it came to me in a dream?”

     The Father chortled, then said, as though he needed reminding, “I am, after all, a man of faith.” Roused by the notion that the arm of divinity, albeit in a small way and for a very targeted purpose, was working through Andy, Father Carroll asked, “So, your dream led you straight to our door?”

     “Unfortunately, Father, the dream wasn’t that specific. I’ve already been turned away twice.” 

     Father Carroll frowned that his notion got dashed, then said, “Who shall I say it is that wishes to see our Sister Mary Veronica?”

     On the surface, no question seemed more simplistic, innocuous, or answerable. Had Andy not hesitated, he might have blurted a reply. But he did, albeit briefly, pause such that the question and answer persisted as sources of strain and complexity. What if Father Carroll entered the convent and announced to Sister Mary Veronica, “Andy, or “Your son” is here to see you? Andy could only hope that Sister Mary Veronica had taken the news sitting down. What if Sister Mary Veronica emerged from her quarters expecting to see “an old friend” and beheld Andy? Would she make a scene? Andy’s thoughts turned to Laura, the devoted grandmother of Young Ray. Would posing himself as the son of a woman once called Emma Trumaine dishonor Laura Salisbury? To one woman, he was a foundling she had taken into the bosom of her home and had grown to love. To the other, motivation notwithstanding, he was someone she chose and nurtured in the breadth of her love while enduring a time of great emotional stress. Two deserving women owning the same right marked an unexpected dilemma.

     “Are you all right?” Father Carroll asked Andy.

     “I am,” came Andy’s dispassionate reply. “Please tell Sister Mary Veronica her son is here to see her.”

     Fixated on Andy were probing eyes, judging eyes, eyes that pondered the character of a son likely to have abandoned his mother for having found her true calling, albeit late in life. Father Carroll also theorized that a son felt abandoned by what he perceived as a self-serving endeavor and was here to make long-overdue amends.

     “Come,” said Father Carroll. “I’ll lead you to the convent.”

     They walked in silence, Andy a half-stride behind Father Carroll, whose steps, despite plodding, personified grace and authority. 

     “Mother Superior, this is Andy Trumaine,” Father Carroll announced. “He is Sister Mary Veronica’s son.”  

     “So you’re the one she prays for every night.” Andy sensed Mother Superior was not apprising a son of his mother’s prayers but insinuating that the aforementioned nightly ritual was more than what a son so long estranged deserves. That Mother Superior’s narrowing eyes, peering through eyeglasses resting far down on the bridge of her nose, reinforced Andy’s intuition. Sighing, she added, “She’s out back feeding the birds. I suppose I should go inform her that you’re here.”

     Yeah, you do that, was the thought accompanying Andy’s courteous smile and gracious words, “Thank you, Mother Superior.” Then it occurred to Andy that it was Mother Superior’s task to dole out heaping helpings of a constraining phenomenon known as Catholic guilt. Mother Superior disappeared inside the convent and did not return for several minutes alone. “It seems Sister Mary Veronica has had a spell. Perhaps you should try back another time.”  

     “I’m not leaving; I have nowhere to go,” Andy explained. “Tell her I’ll be here waiting and that she should take as long as she needs.”

     “As you wish,” said Mother Superior. A sigh revealing impatience and predictable rolling of the eyes followed. Andy responded by muttering, “Snooty old penguin,” once Mother Superior disappeared behind the bulky door.

     Andy put the stern and dismissive Mother Superior from his mind; he didn’t wish Sister Mary Veronica to catch him with a soured disposition should she suddenly appear. He admired the church’s architecture, Old World charm, and the aged landscape it was nestled into. His treatment aside, the features warmed him with peace and welcome—two words that reminded him of home, where Andy knew his front lawn accommodated Young Ray and friends for a game of two-hand touch while Patti worked the grill preparing for hungry mouths. How he longed to be there, immersed in the life and vigor unfolding at the other end of the state. His head jerked when he heard the convent door pushed open. His heart plummeted. Still, he unhesitatingly rushed to the steps and stood at attention. The next frame of his life revealed the figure of a frail little nun. The nun returned his gaze demurely while taking stock of two decades’ worth of change. The nun’s assessment of Andy was returned in kind, for the pendulum of their respective worlds had swung, leaving in its wake wonder to surge within two erstwhile loved ones. In holding each other’s gaze, they were flung through the years back to Karen’s bedroom, where they battled regret that loomed as might a mountain. Finally, the strain lingering in the ether passed, and eyes possessing warmth and the longing for rediscovery prevailed.

    Andy reached inside his jacket, clumsily feeling for his peace offering, prop, or icebreaker. “I hope you have something to play this on.” In a tidy package, the Unfinished and Ninth Symphonies of Franz Schubert settled in the delicate hands of Sister Mary Veronica.

     “Father passed a while back. He taught me to love Schubert; it was a sustaining gift he gave me. It will be a beautiful reminder of him and your thoughtfulness.  And yes, I do have something to play it on.”

     Andy’s eyes shifted from the staid expression of Sister Mary Veronica to the delicate hands clutching the Schubert opuses—hands that once worked the earth and cooked his meals. He asked the sister, “Would you like to walk the grounds with me?”

     “Very much.”

     Andy took hold of the Sister’s hands and guided her from the bottom step to the ground, where he towered over her.

     “You’re taller than I remembered,” she said.

     “It’s good to see you….” What followed a nearly undetectable hesitation was Andy’s quaking voice managing the word “Mom.”

     The Sister did not fray or unravel when hearing the word: The emotional depth reached came from a rousing plummet. Andy caught and secured the Sister before she met the ground, then drew her to his chest, where she piteously cried, “Son! May I still call you that?” More definitive than words was the strength of Andy’s embrace; still, it failed to thwart Sister Mary Veronica from trembling, nor did it stem the flow of her sobbing.

     They strolled the grounds as Andy wished. The Sister took hold of his arm. Occasionally, Andy felt the weight of her head against his shoulder.

     “There’s no harm admitting, for a spell, our lives were strange, unsettled; there was no telling what the next moment would bring. Then, inexplicably, everything would feel normal, and I would hold my breath, hoping to suspend the moment and that it would replicate a million times over and allow me to live insulated from my sins. Unfortunately, not all transgressions are equal; some have everlasting consequences, condemning us to live in the world as it is—a world fashioned by the sins we commit. 

     “Karen, as did I, waited up every night. We were two broken women trying to salvage what remained of our ruins and hoping against hope that our brave knight would return. Come morning, Karen would tiptoe into your bedroom, hoping that you had made a stealthy return during the night. I was right behind her in the doorway. Every morning, we woke to the same scene: brokenhearted Buddy in your bed. He hung on three more years before he passed.” 

     “God, how I missed that hound,” said Andy.

     “Buddy would escape and not return for hours; he searched for you in all the familiar places you used to romp. Karen also searched. I didn’t discourage her, but I knew her efforts were futile. I saw the look in your eye that night and knew you weren’t leaving for hours or days but for good, and I had no right to stand in your way; my sins were too black to dare lay claim to someone of your goodness. Yet every day, I regretted not having tried harder, groveled longer, or whipped myself before you until bleeding. But as I look at you now, a grown man, I can see, in that moment twenty years ago, you made a good decision.”

     “Perhaps the power of someone’s prayers helped me along.”

     “That’s a kind thought, though a touch too generous. Incidentally, Karen and Buddy weren’t the only ones who looked for you; Candi practically walked holes in her shoes. The poor girl was so in love with you; it was years before she got over you leaving.  Davy Shaw and Panda came to the house every day, as did Kirk Schumacher before Kirk went away to school.”

     “What can you tell me about them?”

     “Candi gave up her dream of you returning and married right out of high school. She was content to remain a local girl. Kirk went off to the University of Pittsburgh. He came by between semesters to check on us and play with Buddy. After he graduated, we lost track of him. As sophomores, Davy and Panda joined the cross-country and track teams. Coach Squirek growled that they ran like a couple of tourists looking for a place to eat lunch.”

     “That sounds like Coach.” Andy chuckled, remembering the antics of his first running mentor.

     “Davy and Panda went to school in Erie. Currently, they live in Pittsburgh with their wives and children. As for Coach? He took over the track program at Youngstown State.”

     “Coming here, I noticed a quaint café on Mills Way. Would I be permitted to take you away for an early dinner?”

     “It’s a convent, Andy, not a medieval monastery.”

     “Of course.”

     The barrage of questions Andy expected didn’t begin until they were seated and poring over menus. The Sister started with more recent times and worked her way back to that fateful night, which hovered like an ominous cloud. For years, Andy tried to blot it from his memory, to beat back the horror and foreboding that made that night a burden to ponder. There were times he tricked himself that his mind and soul were out of range concerning the charges a given memory could levy, but he could never fully free himself from Karen’s hold; he would always stand with a foot squarely planted in her room. And alas, sitting across from him was a woman who, despite her religious garb and a new name, personified the breadth and potency of his worst memory.

     On Andy and the Sister went, traveling back in time, losing themselves in a twenty-year journey. Before long, Sister Mary Veronica was placed on an eastbound train, crouched beside a fifteen-year-old, staring across a boxcar at a woe-begotten creature who would remain neither nameless nor penniless. The Sister wept that a piece of Emma Trumaine—perhaps the best part—lived in another.

     “Saint Martin and the Beggar has become a favorite of my son’s as well,” Andy told the Sister. With misgivings, for he was unsure how to broach the subject, he asked, “How did Karen manage?” before feebly adding, “I mean… how is she?”

     “When recalling her childhood—the innocence and fragility that personified her—it astonishes me to think how strong she was. Of the two of us, she was the stronger. I was the weak one, the coward. I prayed for strength. God responded, and I channeled my modest gains into mending what my weaknesses helped break and hoped that I wasn’t too late. Funny thing: my prayers and efforts were for naught. Karen had her own method of mending. She took the unwanted part of her life and cut it away—a swift and tidy amputation—and never looked back.”  

     “It’s funny,” Andy broke in. “In the time it took to blink, everything changed, and nothing that occurred afterward went as I imagined.”

     “How did you imagine it?” the Sister warily intoned.

     “It’s no longer important,” Andy told her.

     “I see,” the Sister said plaintively, her eyes downcast, guilt and shame washing over her as they had twenty years ago, eroding the serenity of Sister Mary Veronica and, in its wake, erecting the anguish of Emma Trumaine.

     “I don’t mean to upset you,” Andy said, “it’s just that I don’t want to place myself back in that room if I can help it.”

     “Maybe you need to go back there,” the Sister theorized. Maybe we all do.”

     “Where is Karen?” Andy asked, brushing aside the Sister’s notion of what was needed to attain closure.

     Andy’s mild brusqueness caused the Sister to feel diminished and insignificant. Still, she returned to a decorous state befitting of her line. “Chicago,” she forced herself to reply brightly.” 

     “Interesting.” Despite no basis for judging Karen in Chicago as an extraordinary affair, Andy couldn’t resist an incredulous tenor. To suggest as much—he feared he already had—might carry the weight of implication that he dared to think of Karen familiarly. How dare you pretend to know her! Where were you when we needed you? He had to be careful; twenty years was far too long an interval to act as if he hadn’t squandered any equity.   

     “First came college, where she majored in journalism,” the Sister explained. “That was her first step in doing what I had hoped to do with my life: have a career in writing. So what if spite became her impetus? So what if staring her weak, pathetic mother in the eye to demonstrate, ‘This is how it’s done; this is how one tackles a career,’ was her incentive for pursuing my dream? What right had I to begrudge her?” A feeble shrug and a frown revealing self-deprecation accompanied the Sister’s pause. “Her first job was with a local newspaper, but it was too close for comfort; everyone knew her as the girl who… Again, the Sister paused. That fateful night pursued; it was a trap, a magnet.

     “She needed to lose herself in a bigger place and ran off to Pittsburgh. She latched onto a regional magazine and wrote a piece that got some attention: The earthquake that hit San Francisco just as game three of the World Series was about to begin. One thing led to another—there was a brief stop in Toledo—and nowadays, she works as a beat writer for the Cubs, hence Chicago, where she seems to have settled; it’s marked the place she’s stayed the longest. I can only assume she’s content and has no plans to move. Not that she would confide in me; I don’t become abreast of matters, for example, a change in job or locality, until after the fact.” 

     “That was unexpected,” said Andy. “Not the moving around part; Karen’s current employer.”

     “Karen enjoyed baseball as a child. It was when she showed signs of womanhood that her interest mysteriously vanished. She was seventeen when she could again sit in the living room and take in a game.”

     “A beat writer for a major league ballclub. Impressive.” Andy gushing over Karen’s career was how he hoped to remain on that topic and not get dragged through the redolence of Ted Trumaine, but the Sister was determined to return to that very portal of the past. Andy wondered why. The Sister had her God, Karen had her career, and Andy appeared in good standing. Why was it necessary to tie Karen’s transition from girlhood to womanhood to her vanishing interest in a game?  

     “Indeed, impressive,” the Sister said.

     “Did I detect a note of disapproval?” Andy wasn’t judging; he was curious.

     “It’s not my place to disapprove of what Karen does with her life; I forfeited that right long ago. But since we’re on the subject, the life of a beat writer is perfect: you’re on the road half the year with seldom a day off. Worse, it’s nearly impossible for a woman holding such a position to have a relationship, never mind a child. And how fitting she should wield her craft in Chicago—a city that burned to embers then rose from the ashes. But don’t get the wrong impression; I’m proud of what she’s accomplished. Truly, I am.”

     “How long have you been at Saint Mary’s?” Andy needed a momentary respite from Karen.

     “Eleven years? Maybe longer? The years lately seem to fly. I had considered the convent shortly after Karen went away to school.” As though apologizing for an inadequacy, the Sister admitted, “The loneliness was unbearable. I saw my life, one agonizing day after another, reduced to nothing and with no end in sight.” Brightening, Sister Mary Veronica told Andy, “I learned that a person doesn’t need riches or a mountain to climb; they need a task to perform that contributes redeeming value to the world.”

     Andy wondered, why the convent? It became clear that Karen wasn’t the only Trumaine to have rebuilt a city reduced to embers and used a vocation as a shield. He didn’t dare give voice to his accusation. Instead, he asked, “Does the role of Sister Mary Veronica fulfill you?”

     “More than I could have imagined. But first, I had to accept that I could never fully atone for what I let happen to Karen. It was then that I discovered that I love serving God, and in serving Him and helping others, I feel worthy of occupying space in this madding world and more connected to it than ever.”

     They spent a brief spell eating in silence. Much of what they had intimated required reflection. Before long, the Sister laid down her fork and confessed, “There was another reason I ran to the convent, though not quite so noble as the first.”

     “Must all our motives be pure and noble? Can’t any portion of our lives be self-serving?”

     “We should always strive for purity and nobility when we act, though I suppose it’s unrealistic for a flawed species such as ours to apply virtue in every instance.” The Sister paused. Her tone was grave when adding, “Many years ago, a young woman named Emma Lynn Colby chose the wrong path not because she was foolish or careless but because she was meek and innocent, and such aspects made her vulnerable to someone who preferred conquering over loving. When placed at the dawn of a new beginning, she lacked confidence in her judgment and feared making the same mistake.” Lowering her eyes, Sister Mary Veronica said, “I suppose that qualifies me as a coward.”

     Andy reached across the table and took hold of the Sister’s hands. “I’m not sure about these so-called paths we allegedly choose; I think it’s all a ruse and that God’s greatest trick is letting us believe we have free will.” 

     Raising a disapproving brow, the Sister said, “You think the gift of free will is a sham and that God guides us using trickery?”

     “When your last name is Trumaine, it would be unwise to look at free will as a gift.” Sister Mary Veronica frowned. “And forgive me if what I’m about to say is provocative: Given my starting point, my life turned out better than I could have imagined. But if Ted weren’t a monster, like most orphans, I would’ve aged out of Saint Pete’s. Moreover, if not for the untimely death of Peyton Salisbury, I couldn’t hazard a guess where I’d be today. So, I can sit here and tell you I’m grateful for my life and the happiness it’s yielded, but when considering the events that led to my happiness, I hardly think “grateful” is a word I should utter aloud. I guess I’m trying to say that maybe it’s time to stop whipping yourself for walking a path that may not have been your choice.” 

     “Let’s assume you’re right. It doesn’t change that some aspects of our humanity are hopelessly entrenched in our nature and that some among us can forgive only the transgressions of others, not their own. As for the notion that we’re playing a rigged game? Many believe that our worldly existence is preordained, but only God knows for sure.” The Sister paused, gathered herself, and set admiring eyes on Andy. “Here’s what I believe: There are those among us born to step out of line, to act in ways that change the course of history, even if it’s history that applies only to a teenage girl and her unworthy mother. You had the will to choose your way and the strength to see the journey through, and God knows how truly heavy your heart must have felt.” It was with humility that the Sister told Andy, “I appreciate you sparing me the anguish of your darkest moments.”  

     Andy offered the Sister an arm. They walked back to the convent mostly in silence, save for Andy commenting on the niceness of the evening and the Sister concurring. When the convent came into view, Andy could feel the Sister trembling. Glancing down, he watched her eyes begin to well.

     “Pay no attention to me,” she pleaded.

     They reached the grounds of Saint Mary’s. Sister Mary Veronica would soon disappear inside the convent and agonize over when or if she’ll ever again see a grown man charitable enough to allow her to call him “son.” She moves toward the door, then flings herself at Andy. Burying her face in his chest, through piteous tears, she cried, “I know you came all this way hoping to see Karen. Would you have bothered with me if you could have found her on your own?” Before Andy could reply, telling the Sister, in all likelihood, no, but I’m grateful to have had this time together, she begged him, “Don’t say a word! I had no right to ask! Besides, it doesn’t matter. I’ll always love you.”

     Andy pressed the fragile little nun to his chest and told her, “I love you, too.” 

     Not until Andy drove off did it occur to him that Sister Mary Veronica spared him the immediate unpleasantness that followed that fateful night in Karen’s bedroom. He would never learn that she implicated herself in the slaying of Ted Trumaine. In the Sister’s mind, there was no way to fully atone for bringing a twelve-year-old into the bosom of her diseased world. The next best thing was never to burden him again.

     If the matter had an aspect of pragmatic truth, once Karen could lucidly tell her story, the case, aside from a report and official documentation, was closed. Naturally, finding a man dead in his teenage daughter’s bed naked did little to hurt the swiftness with which the matter saw its way to a conclusion. As for Andy? He was an orphan boy who spent thirty months at 18 Court Street. Who could blame him for running off once discovering a sordid truth? That marked the theory to which many in town had subscribed.

     “He’ll find his way back to us when he’s ready,” Emma told those closest to Andy.

     Aside from those in the room, only Kirk Schumacher, who never asked or was told, knew what happened in Karen’s bedroom that fateful night.

     Andy was sober to what walking away from a dead body could mean to those left behind. It persisted as a burden he dragged with him from place to place along his journey. A portion of the load lifted the night he and Patti Ingram brought their bodies together on the shore of Lake Nuangola. Whether making love on a secluded beach or laying rubber to the road on a Harley, together, they shared the spirit of freedom—a spirit that nothing could touch them, and no odds were too great. If there ever lived two people who deserved to bask in a state of untethered joy, it was Andy Trumaine and Patti Ingram.  

     Aside from being too late in the day to trek to Chicago, Andy felt the pull of an old, familiar place—one of solitude, where he could think and talk to himself. The sky had darkened by the time he nestled himself between rows of withered cornstalks. He felt a wreck; his body ached from hours on the road and emotions that tested depths he was unaware he had. Part of him wanted to keep the fragile little nun pressed to his chest and absorb every tear of her life; another wanted to run as far away from her as he could and bask in an expanse so vast it would require all the days of his life to draw its ether into his lungs. As the once-acclaimed runner learned twenty years ago, time and distance are elements whose characteristics don’t necessarily share symmetry—today served to confirm that his life, Karen’s, and that of a woman who goes by Sister Mary Veronica are forever linked by a single act executed in the time it takes to blink.     

     Tomorrow, a second hurdle awaits the former miler; he fears it is more a mountain whose paths are treacherous, particularly for an inexperienced climber. It seems ages have passed since this morning when he galloped through town with Buddy; Andy rarely permitted himself, less desired an opportunity, to miss Patti, Young Ray, and his faithful hound. His final words to Sister Mary Veronica were to ask that she not forewarn Karen that he was traveling to Chicago. He failed to explain his reasoning coherently. Had he done so, it would have been akin to admitting there stood a possibility he might change his mind. Back and forth, his mind bounds between worlds of dissimilar character. These divergent worlds converge and spill into one another: joy and serenity melt into destruction and reclamation and form an untidy hybrid. Before long, the principle of impenetrability prevails and paves the way for the darkness to conquer light; it places Andy in the hallway, preparing to enter Karen’s room. That he loves Karen more than he fears Ted emboldens him. The world turns, the long night ends. He awakens in the dawn, greeted by clamorous birds. “How is it that you guys all stir at once? Doesn’t anybody stretch or yawn around here?” The former miler has no memory of succumbing to exhaustion but suffers no disorientation—he knows where he is, exactly, before fully awake. Still, it surprises him to learn he made it through a night outdoors, though it is not without an effort that his kinked and wobbly form rights itself among the withering stalks of corn. Maturity—while it whittled away much of the ungainliness that plagued Andy’s youth—has made lying down in cornfields less agreeable. Andy lets out a roar of a yawn, which the birds don’t acknowledge, and drives to the nearest motel to douse his cold and clammy skin with hot water. Across the street is a diner and the promise of breakfast and coffee. First, he buys a copy of the local newspaper.

     Steam rises from his coffee and moistens his face as his eyes scan the front page: O.J. Simpson, Princess Diana, President Clinton; dead or alive, they represent gifts that keep giving. He sets aside the front page and delves into sports: The Steelers defeated the Ravens 42-34; it is a satisfying result. The former miler does not bother checking baseball scores, as 1997 is another October without his beloved Pirates. When glossing through other sections, his eye catches a headline: Warren in at St. Pete’s. The item begins: Dr. Timothy Warren has been chosen to succeed Clayton Huey as director of St. Pete’s Orphanage. Huey, 76, a pillar of the community, has suffered two mild strokes this past year. His wife, Ada Huey, who was acting director, recently stepped down, citing, “Health and family matters were compromising my sworn duty to enrich the lives of children….”

     The windy city would have to wait. Andy gathers his newspaper and is on his feet. He is nearly through the diner’s door when what flashes through his head is the question: Where is Saint Pete’s? He knew not of its proximity to his present location, nor would he have twenty-three years ago. He approaches the woman who seated him. She intoned brightly, “I’ve heard of that place.”

     “Great,” Andy said. “Could I trouble you for directions?”

     “Are you looking to adopt?” Andy winced at what he alleged was an inane attempt at small talk and replied, “Not today. Just wanna go for a visit, assuming I might obtain directions.”

     The woman meekly admits, “I only heard of Saint Pete’s; I don’t know where it is.”

     “Maybe someone else does?” Excitement and desperation ring in Andy’s tenor, but no one can direct him. He telephones the newspaper, hoping to speak with the journalist who penned the article. Following a brief hold, he gets passed around to no avail. Next, he combs through a phone directory but cannot locate a listing, yet somehow, his mounting agitation spits out a name from his distant past. Andy was twelve the last time Dr. Krause saw him. Dr. Krause, a man in his late forties, seemed ancient to a boy of twelve. Andy prayed that a man he remembered as kind and gentle, who, among his charges, was the wellness of orphans, still practiced. 

     “Miss,” Andy called to the woman who seated him. “This is a long shot, but would you happen to know a Dr. Krause?”

     “Would I?” she intoned. “Why, thirty-three years ago, he brought me into the world!” Andy managed a smile. The woman struck a pose, intending to accentuate the kindness thirty-three years had on her figure. Before she could launch into a yarn, Andy begged, “Where might I find him?”

     “You wanna know how to get to his office?”

      “Sure, let’s begin there.” Andy’s sense of irony gets lost on the attractive thirty-three-year-old, who rattled off directions as though she had been waiting all morning for someone to ask. “…and from Harlanburg, you make a left on Eastbrook.” Sweetly, she added, “And don’t forget to tell Dr. Krause that Wendy Carlson sent you. And if you’re still in the neighborhood, come back for lunch.”

     “I’ll do that,” Andy promised halfway through the door.

     Dr. Krause did not remember Andy by name, but his odd collection of features did spark the aging physician. Dr. Krause clearly remembered Little Joe and that the ill-fated youngster had a special friend who loved him like no other.

     When Andy rolled up to Saint Pete’s, he cried, “What a dunce!” Fanning through the phone directory, he searched for the name Saint Pete’s. In plain view, the words Montgomery Orphanage, not the orphanage’s nickname, are chiseled into a long rectangular slab recessed into the front of the building. He stopped to admire the towering Blue Spruces that flanked the main gate. In a lobby, which the former miler failed to recognize, an unfamiliar woman greeted him and was kind enough to escort him to Dr. Warren’s office. “Andy Trumaine,” she announced to Saint Pete’s new director.  

     Since no woman accompanied Andy, the new Director guessed he didn’t happen by the orphanage to discuss adoption. “What brings you to Saint Pete’s?” he asked. The lilt in his inflection was for the possibility that the new director was sitting across his desk from a future patron with deep pockets.

     “I happened to be in town and thought I’d come by for a visit.”

     “I take it then you’re a product of Saint Pete’s?” The new Director’s modulation flattened.

     “I am.”

     “Then I suppose you know this place better than I do.” Dr. Warren admitted to not being on the job for long.

     “I know,” said Andy. “You made today’s newspaper.” The former miler handed over the newspaper to Dr. Warren. After the new director skimmed the three-paragraph column, Andy asked, “Is there a Nurse Hatch on staff?”

     “The name doesn’t ring a bell,” Dr. Warren said but troubled himself to look over the orphanage’s directory. “No,” he added, “there’s no one here by that name.”

     Unable to obscure his gloom, Andy sagged in his chair. He remembered Lucinda Hatch as the youngest among St. Pete’s staff; if she was no longer on staff, chances were neither was anyone else from his days.

     “You missed lunch, unfortunately, but you’re welcome to stay and visit.” Dr. Warren’s words frothed with hospitality. Andy rose to his feet. The new Director added, “Pardon my asking; is this your first return visit?”

     Andy frowned that his emotions were so palpable. Shame was detectable when he admitted, “I haven’t set foot inside these walls in twenty-three years.”

     “You’re here now,” said Dr. Warren. “You wouldn’t have returned if Saint Pete’s wasn’t a place of fond memories. Welcome home, Mr. Andy Trumaine.”

     Andy found his way to an empty cafeteria, which he remembered as the noisiest place on earth. Memories of Halloween parties, Christmas parties, a wedding, and the banter that took place as a matter of routine came flooding back; there were distinct voices the former miler heard above the din: Harold Goolsby’s, Nicky Rincon’s, Cynthia Suarez’s, and others. He looked outside. Only the preschoolers were about. On their faces was evidence of joy derived from twirling in open spaces with the freedom to imagine. Perhaps one of them will distract the cook while another pilfers serving spoons, the goal being a foreign land. The two matrons attending the children appeared far too young to be Leona Wells or Maria De Soto.

     Andy doubled back through the cafeteria to the library, where he kept his distance, watching two high schoolers, in tandem, researching mollusks. They planned to illustrate that these soft-bodied invertebrates are among the most diverse groups in the animal kingdom, totaling no fewer than 100,000 species. Next, his footfalls echoed down an empty corridor. Behind every closed door, a class was in session; the door at the end facing the corridor length was ajar. Andy posed in the doorway and observed a woman amending a chart detailing medications. More apparent than the particulars of her task was a shade of blonde hair nature had not intended (her neglected roots were several shades darker than her shoulder-length mane). A tasteful wedding ring adorning a dainty hand and a name tag that read Nurse Blair were equally apparent. It was not so much the woman’s hair, ring, or nametag that struck Andy but her modest demeanor; an appreciable meekness was manifest in her bearing. Also apparent, if not peculiar, was an effort to occupy less space than her slight form required and regret that she had no such ability. Like a child perched in a garden fearful of bending a petal, she sat while denying that she was every bit as needy of the elements as the flowers she swore to protect. A familiar feeling washed over Andy that he was holding in his gaze a woman overwhelmed by the world at large, who went before it each day on bent knees, willing to give away yet another piece of herself without daring to ask for anything in return. Indeed, the selfless bearing of Nurse Blair was familiar to him; if not for her wedding ring, he may have imagined her a suitable colleague for Sister Mary Veronica.    

     Nurse Blair was startled when finally mindful of a presence in her doorway. “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I didn’t see you standing there.”

     “I’m sorry to have startled you,” Andy said.

     Nurse Blair rolled the ball bearings of her chair backward when realizing the figure filling her doorway was not a student requiring medical treatment. She assumed the new director brought on board a new doctor, who had come to familiarize himself with aspects of his new charge. Why wasn’t I told? Clayton and Ada Huey always forewarned the staff of any changes they considered. Her eyes shifted from Andy’s shoes to his banana-shaped face and ample ears—features that maturity had softened but remained prominent. She rose slowly from her chair, head posed with an analytical tilt, eyes peering like one attempting to confirm a suspicion.  What followed a thorough examination was a shriek that stretched the length of the corridor. It was not the sort of shriek one produces from fright but when overjoyed. Nevertheless, chairs screeched on floors, hurried footsteps raced toward doors that were forcefully flung open, bodies spilled into the corridor, and many voices at once called out, “Lucinda, are you all right?”

     “I’m fine!” she called back. “I’ve never been better!”

     After the buzz settled and everyone was back in their proper place, Andy crooned with a note of incredulity. “Lucinda?” Forgetting the ring, he added, “But Dr. Warren told me there was no one on staff named Nurse Hatch.”

     Mimicking his intonation, Lucinda crooned back, “Well, gee whiz, Andy, a girl can grow up and get married, can’t she?”  

     “I reckon she can!”

     Andy would have been delighted for anyone familiar with his days at Saint Pete’s, but none more than Lucinda. “I’m sure they won’t miss me if we take a few minutes for a stroll,” she said. They set out upon the grounds of the orphanage.  

     “Andy, I know I shouldn’t ask, but….”

     “… I spent the day with her yesterday. It went well.”

     “I’m glad. I can only imagine how much it must have meant to her.”

     “To both of us.” 

     “Then I’m glad for both of you.” Lucinda squeezed Andy’s hand. “When you left all those years ago, she assumed Saint Pete’s was the first place you’d have gone. When learning otherwise, she went to pieces, though she managed to keep upright and composed in Karen’s presence. We spent a lot of time together that summer, Emma and me. I tried to comfort her, but of the countless tears shed, half belonged to me.” Lucinda stopped; her pose was rigid when she told Andy, “If you believe nothing else, believe this: Emma would’ve had herself crucified on the slightest chance her sacrifice could have blotted out the stain of Ted Trumaine and the suffering it caused Karen and you. Instead, she did something far worthier of a mere mortal; she gave herself to God. Her mission aside, she’ll spend the remainder of her days atoning for something for which she believes there is no atonement. But, in becoming Sister Mary Veronica, she has made her life a well-intentioned endeavor.”

     Continuing their stroll, they arrived at an area where a row of yews still stands. “Aah,” Lucinda reminiscently sighed. “Do you remember this spot? I believe China was the initiative.” 

     “How could I forget.”

     “Many of your old peers, the ones you would remember best, call on us occasionally to say hello and keep us abreast of their life and times. Those who settled far away write. Cynthia Suarez and I exchange cards on holidays; occasionally, we speak on the phone, though nowadays, she goes by Neuman. She sends me pictures of her twin boys; it’s hard to believe they’re already ten. Harold Goolsby lives in Pittsburgh; he’s a confirmed bachelor and plans to keep it that way. ‘No woman is gonna dig her claws into me,’ he’s forever insisting. Harold has it in his head that women are predators put on Earth to strip men of the freedoms they were born to enjoy. I can’t wait until he falls in love.”

     The names were like music to Andy’s ear. Lucinda kept rattling them off, attaching to each an anecdote of old and of recent days until Andy asked, “What about Nicky?”

     “We were all very proud of Nicky for his service.” Lucinda’s tone grew solemn; it made Andy wary. “Sergeant Rincon was a Marine field medic. He was killed in Desert Storm.”

     Andy couldn’t begin to quantify the depth of sorrow he felt for a boy whose presence he hadn’t known in twenty-three years. Nicky’s death was a glaring reminder that Andy was pulled out of line, plucked from the bosom of Saint Pete’s and his fellow orphans, his life set on a different trajectory. Not even summoning a vision of Young Ray brandishing a baseball mitt quelled his sorrow. He swelled with disdain for Sister Mary Veronica and sneered over what he hoped to accomplish in Chicago. The moment passed.  Next, dozens of excitable orphans, craving open space into which to fling themselves, came bursting through the cafeteria doors. Observing Andy’s bittersweet expression, Lucinda said, “It’s not always easy to look back at yourself, but the joy these children feel, regardless of how meager the reason, is no less affecting than the joy felt by your son.

     “Russell, my husband, is a kind and caring man and understands the deep connection I feel for the children of Saint Pete’s and my need to stay connected after they age out.”

     After the horde rushed past them, Andy asked Lucinda, “Do you ever hear from Maxi?” It was clear from Lucinda’s smile that she had. “I remember how you looked up to Maxi; no one was ever so admired by his peers as Maxi Brenner.” Lucinda took hold of Andy’s hand. “Come,” she said. Andy swelled with anticipation that Lucinda might show him photographs of Maxi or cards into which Maxi penned sentiments. Lucinda led the former miler down the main corridor, stopped in front of room number 12, and pointed a finger to invite Andy to peer through a pane in the door. The former miler watched class conducted by a tall man—not as tall as himself—with dark, wavy hair; flecks of white accented the temples. He frothed with charisma this orator of effortless eloquence while lithely ambling the rows of the room. At a point of emphasis, he planted a heel, pirouetted, and made sweeping gestures with his arms. Everyone, including the observer in the corridor, remained in the thrall of a man lecturing the pros and cons of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s brainchild, the New Deal, citing that while the program alleviated a portion of the financial burdens that plagued the nation, it also empowered the government to the extent that, had it the propensity, it could have infringed upon rights and freedoms. Effectively tied to the narrative was how, after World War I, the United States transitioned from a debtor nation to a creditor nation and how protectionism and border tariffs worked against the American economy. This man was not teaching history; he was bringing history to life in a way that made it feel like a lived experience.

     “Maxi,” Andy whispered, “it’s really you.”

     Lucinda rose to her tiptoes and kissed Andy’s cheek. “I’ll leave you to it,” she said.

     By the time Andy reacted to Lucinda, she had already gone, leaving him alone with memories flooding in from across the decades and with nothing but a wall for support. He half expected to see an undersized boy in an oversized Pirates cap tearing around the corner or at his side, tugging at his shirt sleeve. His moment was interrupted when the collective sound of many chair legs screeching on the floor and feet marching toward the door arose. “See you tomorrow, Mr. Brenner,” many called while exiting room 12.  

     Andy waited until every student departed, then stealthily slipped through the door and helped himself to a seat in the back row.  Mr. Brenner, sitting at his desk glancing over recently handed-in material, sensed another presence. Without bothering to look up, he acknowledged the presence with the remark, “I don’t recall asking anyone to stay after class.” An upward shift of an eye prompted him to add, “And I don’t believe you areone of my students.” 

     “No, Mr. Brenner, I am not,” Andy needlessly confessed. “But just from standing in the hall, for as long as I had, I learned more about The Great Depression and the Roosevelt administration than I ever knew.”

     “I’m glad to have enlightened you,” said Mr. Brenner.

     “Indeed, Mr. Brenner,” Andy cheekily began, “I feel quite enlightened.”

     Bemused by what he now perceived as the antics of someone whose insolence was farcical, Mr. Brenner asked, “Do I know you?”  

     Andy rose from his chair and took another nearer to the front. “Yes, Mr. Brenner, you do.”    

     As Mr. Brenner narrowed his eyes to peer at a man perceived as a puzzling figure, Andy added, “You see, Mr. Brenner, many years ago, there was a young boy who looked up to you a great deal. It’s fair to say you were his hero. Anyway, one day, that boy was standing alone by a lake. He was sad because his best friend was dying. You saw this, went to his side, and comforted him with words that to this day he still remembers.” Andy, slowly unfurling himself from his chair, rose to his feet. Maxi mimicked Andy. Andy began: “I wish I knew for sure what happens to every soul born into this world, but I don’t. But for kids like Little Joe, who suffer and don’t get their fair chance in life….” Maxi joined Andy; he picked up the words as though, despite a twenty-seven-year parade of tears and laughter, failures and triumphs, they were resting on his tongue. “…I believe that God has a special place for them in Heaven, and He turns them into angels who guide humanity because they can understand better than anyone how truly precious life is. That’s what I believe.”

     First came an embrace, followed by smiles, then tears.

     “More times than I could recall, I thought of you, and to this day, I look for what I call ‘Maxi Brenner attributes’ in other people.”

     Taking a step back, Maxi intoned, “It’s me who has to look up to you.”

     “After observing you in front of those kids, I wouldn’t make so bold a claim if I were ten feet tall.”

     “Hey, school’s out,” said Maxi. “If you have time to grab some refreshments, we have plenty of catching up to do.”

     Maxi, grinning proudly, intoned, “Did you ever imagine you’d roll around in one of these contraptions?” Maxi rapped on the dashboard of Andy’s Caddy—a well-preserved 1992 model recently purchased in Binghamton.

     “Remember me?” Andy had cried to Fred Birmingham. The dealer remembered Andy, Patti, Ray, Bill, their fine job, and knocked a few greenbacks off the sticker price.

     “I didn’t know what a Cadillac was until I was fifteen.” Andy explained how he came to help landscape a car dealership.

     “Here’s to Saint Pete’s,” Maxi said once they were served two draughts poured into iced mugs.

     Like a captive fan, Andy couldn’t peel his eyes away from Maxi. His prevailing curiosity led him to ask, “How’d you end up back at Saint Pete’s?”

     “It’s a long story,” said Maxi. Andy raised his glass to imply that if there were ever a time for a long story, it would be tonight.

     Maxi took a pull at his beer and told Andy, “Clayton Huey was a helluva salesman. But I should start from the beginning. When I aged out of Saint Pete’s, I grabbed the first available job: construction. The old axiom, ‘you can’t eat your intellect,’ rang in my head; it’s especially true when you’re an orphan without resources. It only took until the end of a week to learn I wasn’t a born laborer—there was no psychology I could use to trick myself into believing I was on the right path. I started attending school at night. I don’t mind admitting it was no picnic, laboring all day in the elements and then studying at night. Sometimes, I would fall asleep in a chair with a book in my lap, pen in hand, and not stir until morning. I used to pray for summer to end so I didn’t have to work geared up in the swelter, but no sooner than my prayer got answered, I was out there freezing my ass off; and what’s worse, when you’re the newbie, you get the crappiest detail. Anyway, I made it through those days, and don’t begrudge a minute of it: they taught me the importance of perseverance. For example, a man can live like a church mouse, like someone for whom the economic principle of scarcity doesn’t even begin to apply, as long as he has a goal and a pathway to reach it. My goal was simple: to save all my nickels and dimes so I could quit construction, go to school full-time, and work a job requiring less brawn, like waiting tables on weekends. Fast-forward a few years, I’m teaching history to eleventh graders in Pittsburgh and engaged to a nurse. I suppose I have Lucinda to thank for my predilections concerning the opposite sex. Anyway, out of the blue, I got a phone call from Clayton Huey. ‘Maxi, a teaching position just came open at Saint Pete’s!’ My thoughts were, I’m doing fine right where I am, and I like the city of Pittsburgh, its people, its culture. Graciously, I told him, ‘No, thank you.’ Minutes later, he calls back. ‘Maxi, you answered too quickly. Take a day to think it over, then get back to me. I’m confident you’ll see it my way.’ Damn, if by the next morning, when I woke, the job didn’t seem to make more sense. By lunchtime, it was perfect.”

     “How so?” Andy wondered as he judged Maxi’s charismatic and well-cultured persona better suited for big-city urbanity.  

     “The expression knowledge is power kept ringing in my head,” Maxi said. “On the outside, kids tend to learn what they want to learn and when they want to learn it. Too many don’t have a sense of urgency that knowledge is, indeed, power. But in places like Saint Pete’s, which houses the dispossessed and the unentitled, I’m more than a history teacher; I’m a portal to the world, and every day I get to enlighten and empower. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not a life coach, just a guy with a fond appreciation for teaching in a place where the stakes are higher.”   

     “You always had the answers, Maxi. In every situation, either the right words were on your lips, or you knew what needed to be done. As an adult, I can’t tell you how often I caught myself reaching for the wisdom you had as a teenager.”

     “We were orphans, Andy. Who could appreciate us better than us?”

     Andy acknowledged the indisputable point, then raised a glass in honor of orphanhood. Maxi added the postscript, “Here’s to orphans made good.”

     Apologizing for hurdling over the Trumaines—although Maxi confessed to learning of the tragedy from Lucinda years ago—the former miler took Maxi through the late-seventies and into 1980, focusing mainly on his running career. Maxi intoned, “You’re making me feel guilty that I voted for Jimmy Carter.

     “Don’t,” said Andy. “He was the president. He made a tough call. Other presidents made tough calls, resulting in the loss of lives. I consider myself lucky.”

     “That’s a healthy perspective. Besides, life’s too short for dragging around bitterness.”

     The two sipped from their glasses and watched the first pitch of game five of the American League Championship Series between the Yankees and Indians. In unison, they cried, “I can’t stand the damn Yankees,” to which Andy added, “Let’s see them try and win a World Series with the Pirates payroll.”

     “If it’s true, the meek shall inherit the Earth; one day, the baseball Gods will smile down on our Bucs,” said Maxi.

     “I don’t know, Maxi; anymore, our poor Bucs are like the orphans of the sport. It seems like an eternity since the days when Roberto defended right field.”

     “Here’s to our orphans,” said Maxi. “Win or lose; they’re in our hearts.”

     They recalled where and who they were with when the Pirates, led by Willie Stargell, erased a three-games-to-one deficit to take the 1979 World Series. “1979,” Maxi sighed. “Where did eighteen years go.”

     Andy glanced at the screen just as Derek Jeter stepped into the batter’s box to face Jaret Wright with one out in the top of the fifth; Tim Raines was dancing off first base. “You know, Maxi,” he said, “I’ve been thinking about him a lot lately. In fact—I’m gonna risk sounding nuts—I’ve been seeing him all over, flashes of him in my head when having a catch with my son, driving down the road, even today in the corridor outside your classroom. I never felt him so close; it’s as if I can reach out and touch him.”

     “I still think about him, too,” said Maxi. “It was the first time any of us ever had to deal with death as a tragedy.” Maxi let loose a wistful sigh over how much the world had changed in twenty-seven years. Reliving the anguish, he said, “Here he was, this little boy, dealt the worst hand of anyone and never uttered a word of complaint. Even when it became apparent that his disease was a battle he wouldn’t win, he stood tall and accepted it. And there we were, a day at a time, helplessly watching him slip through our fingers.” 

     “Yeah,” said Andy, gazing into his empty mug, “he slipped right through our helpless fingers.”

     “I’ve been to Chicago,” said Maxi. “It’s a great city. But it could be that Karen wasn’t the only matter compelling you to drive west. Maybe there’s something trapped in your subconscious, and the only way to get at it was to return to your humble beginnings.” Maxi reached for Andy’s hand and assured him, “Something meaningful will happen.”  

     Andy drives back to his motel room after watching the Yankees lose the fifth and deciding game to the Indians. Their loss isn’t much consolation that his and Maxi’s beloved Pirates again are non-participants in October baseball. He is woozy from the alcohol but managing. Upon entering his darkened room, he makes for the window, pulls open the drapes, and invites the streetlamps and moonlight to flood the area. Casting his eyes across the street at the well-lit diner, he considers a coffee nightcap and how tomorrow at breakfast, he will mention to Wendy Carlson, “Dr. Kraus sends his regards,” despite failing to remember her to the doctor. Then, like one preparing to sleep in their clothes, he falls backward onto a mattress. Before assessing its suitability, an unexpected import of aloneness washes over him—its weight is unbearable—and engenders pondering the anomaly of feeling less alone last night in a cornfield. Until then, his odyssey of traveling backward through the years had involved only Sister Mary Veronica. He hadn’t figured on reuniting with Lucinda and Maxi. Thus, two former worlds, St. Pete’s and 18 Court Street, merged to form a potency, the gravity of which dragged him further away from Patti and Young Ray.  

     Maxi and Lucinda never strayed too far from Andy’s thoughts. Whatever the outcome in Chicago, his reunion with Maxi and Lucinda has made his trip worthwhile. Maxi and Lucinda served as reminders that, while there was no denying Ted Trumaine shaped Andy’s outcome, others had a hand in shaping the essence of Andy Trumaine, the person, and thus began Andy ruminating a yet-to-be-known purpose that summoned him to journey west—something beyond Karen and 18 Court Street, Maxi and Lucinda—something fundamentally existential gone missing from his consciousness, a morsel of his life belonging only to him, who none other than himself had shaped or influenced. He sensed he was getting close, that it was near. Then, as always, when dragged into chaos triggered by a fraught mind, the former miler went running. Returning to his room, well lathered despite the cool night air, he stopped at the payphone outside the diner and began dialing home. He wanted to tell Patti not to worry, that he was leaving for Chicago early in the morning, which would tack extra time onto his trip. Before he punched in the last number, he became aware of the time. It was 1:30 a.m. The orphan placed the receiver back on the cradle, slid to a crouch, and wept, “Oh, God, Nicky, why’d you have to go and join the Marines?”

*****

     Andy spent seven hours on the road, mainly on I-80, driving through Ohio and Indiana. Not wishing to arrive in an unfamiliar city after dark or contend with the end-of-the-day rush, he drove nonstop. It wasn’t until he managed a spot at the corner of New Orleans and Locust that he remembered a bag containing a sandwich and pastry the friendly and flirty Wendy Carlson tucked under his arm. “For the road,” she said. “It’s on me,” and winked coquettishly. From the car to upright on the sidewalk, joints cramped for seven hours rejoiced to have unfurled themselves. Andy ate, gawking at the immensity of the windy city.  

     Bouts of trepidation had flared while behind the wheel. The nearer Andy came to Chicago, the more frequent the attacks; every minute of the final hour proved a strain, leaving no room for a lighthearted thought. The delicate girl who once went about adorned with ribbons and bows engendered fear.

     “What made me think she would care to see me after twenty years? Who would care to see anyone after twenty years? Why are women so terrifying?” Despite Patti’s urging and Ray’s pep talk, today’s initiative wasn’t meant to be a lucid and unburdened endeavor. The former miler wrestled with how to approach Karen. Was Karen a woman or a sister? It was October; their estrangement had reached five months into its third decade, thus rendering them foreigners to days in the cornfield, or so Andy alleges, just as he alleges that randomly interjecting himself into Karen’s life would prove an unwelcomed intrusion—perhaps even a gross one. He vanquished her demon; that much was undeniable, but was his heroism an act whose equity has long since declined? Was Andy another stranger lost in a big city whose status expired long ago? Buried deep within, yet surfacing with menace, echoed the notion that, upon rescuing Karen, he abandoned her. Now, a captain who long ago deserted a sinking ship was coming to ask his crew for forgiveness. But 18 Court Street was not his ship, or he, its captain. Still, Andy was helpless but to invoke his last vision of Karen through thirty-five-year-old eyes, which led to him unjustly criticizing a boy.  

     He circled the block twice before climbing the steps leading to Karen’s front door. It could go one of two ways, he thought. She’ll throw her arms around me, as Lucinda had, or snub me and say, “Look who finally decided to show up after twenty-plus years.” He managed a feeble knock as the blood coursed away from his limbs, rendering him with a weakened hand.

     He glanced at his watch; the same timepiece Ray and Laura had placed on his wrist after obliterating a field of milers in his first regional meet as a high school sophomore. Every gift is a treasure and sentimental to an orphan. It wasn’t yet four o’clock. The former miler comforts himself with the probability Karen wouldn’t be home at such an hour and the less likely notion she was away on a trip, then rebuked himself for praying for failure. Seven-plus hours covering hundreds of miles is too great an investment to chalk it up to the idiom: at least I tried. Finally, he heard footsteps making for the door—the proverbial moment of truth can terrify and thrill—and the paltry amount of poise he had hoped to maintain faltered. Without a peek or moment’s hesitation, the door flings open—an ill-advised reaction to a knock for a single woman living in a city. Karen’s abruptness suggests she is expecting someone, though Sister Mary Veronica hadn’t forewarned her of a visitor. The Sister had honored Andy’s request; she was wary of rousing Karen should Andy-to-Chicago prove a faulty initiative.   

     Clear eyes, a glowing complexion, and a confident pose occupy the doorway; nary a vestige that Karen was ever preyed upon lingers. She personifies a remarkable reinvention. Gone are the ribbons and bows that once adorned her hair; an acutely angled nape-to-chin bob shows off her lustrous strands; the same soft features that made her face a pleasure to look at have endured and appear as though they would for many years to come. A tilt of the head reveals that an examination of the rangy figure standing before her is taking place. It’s unclear to Andy whether Karen’s eyes flash with contemptuous recognition, the thrill of discovery, or a twisted combination capable of whittling away twenty years to place them in a dark bedroom or domain to launch a new paradigm. Her head falls to the other side, and Andy utters, “It’s me, Karen.” He braces himself for a reaction, be it joy or hostility. A moment passes, then another. Evident is a slight tremor in his timbre when he asks the lovely figure, “Wanna go fishing?”

     The lids of soft eyes, pretty eyes, flutter, then close. Unless Andy is reading it wrong and he feels confident of the contrary, glowing in Karen’s mien is serenity that had waited twenty years to blossom. Extending a hand across the threshold, she pulls Andy inside. “Come,” Karen urges, then proceeds to drag Andy up the stairs and into a bedroom; it was all too reminiscent of the day he first arrived at 18 Court Street. So hurried seems Karen; apparently, whatever it was prompting her to tow Andy along couldn’t wait for the time it would take for them to reacquaint. With a flourish, she poses beside a closet door. Her deportment suggests she will unveil what lies beyond the door or invite Andy to guess. The former miler is unsure which choice applies but intones the quip, “Do I get to keep it if I guess right.”

     “It’s not for me to decide.”

     “We’ve become cryptic, I see.”

     It is with cheekiness that Karen replies, “I always considered ambiguity one of my stronger suits.”

     Andy moves toward the closet. Karen cranks the knob. The door springs open, revealing items once cherished. Hanging alone and carefully preserved, as though nothing else deserves to be near it, is Andy’s Roberto Clemente jersey. Above the clothes rod, on the shelf, sits three more items: a Pirates cap and two shoe boxes that have housed baseball cards for twenty years. Andy takes the jersey and lays it on the nearby bed. Karen places his cards and cap beside the jersey.

     “From New Castle to Pittsburgh to Toledo to Chicago. I’d say these are well-traveled items,” he said.

     “Looks like someone chirped to you my career path.” Karen seemed affable concerning Andy’s knowledge of her.  “But yes,” she agreed, “they are well-traveled items.”

     Items of old, well-preserved items of little use other than their sentimentality, but what Andy gazed upon were objects possessing a voice that screamed of hope and that a long prayed-for moment was finally upon them.

     “Karen…” Contrition rang in Andy’s tenor. Before he could manage another syllable, Karen pleaded, “Let’s not be sorry. Not today. If there’s any contrition to resolve, let’s save it for another time.”  

     Andy liked that idea. He also liked that Karen was looking ahead; the concept that there was a future alleviated whatever pressure the endurance runner had assigned to the here and now. In other words, not every thought needed to be one of poignance or possess a do-or-die aspect. Yet tears gushed but drowned any sadness over lost years. Before long, Karen brightly asked the former miler, “Do you still run?” Matching Karen’s brightness, Andy told her, “I rarely, if ever, miss a day.”

     Tears turned to laughter, if for no other reason than it was futile to suppress them in the first place. Karen, paradoxically, told Andy, “I’ll have you know, I transformed into quite the athlete.”

     “Oh?” the former miler suspiciously intoned.

     “Dogs, as you well know, are creatures of routine. Somebody had to run with Buddy. I won’t claim having had quite the control over that prize Foxhound as you had. Also, I couldn’t run at your pace and got dragged all over town. So, I had three choices: ignore Buddy’s whimpering at the door, have my right arm yanked daily from its socket, or train so that I could run faster. Despite the first option being the most tempting, I chose the latter.”

     Over coffee at a neighborhood café, Andy provided Karen with a reasonably detailed account of the spring of 1977.

     “You did drive through Pennsy, Ohio, and Indiana, correct? And, in the car that brought you here, you have a change of clothes and other provisions typical of a civilized human?”

     “My train hopping, wilderness romping, halfway house flopping days are long behind. Nowadays, when I run, it’s for pure pleasure or charity; I haven’t run competitively in over a decade. Compared to most, I lead a simple and dull life.”

     “Simple is good,” said Karen. “Most days, it’s desirable. But dull? I have no doubt you’re being modest.” 

     As they talked and sipped, it became unimaginable to Andy that the notion of seeing Karen rose to a source of anguish. Upon him freely admitting his trepidation, Karen confessed, “Had I known beforehand you were coming, I’d have been a basket case.” 

     They ordered a second round of coffee. Andy, feigning the incredulity one might display when hearing the news for the first time, intoned, “You’re a beat writer for the Cubs?” After doling out praise, the once-acclaimed miler couldn’t resist the jibe, “No wonder you were home so early in the afternoon in October.”

     “I see they taught comedy in Eastern Pennsylvania,” Karen retorted. “And, incidentally, smart guy, your beloved Pirates haven’t exactly been setting the world on fire since they were unwilling to pony up the necessary greenbacks to keep Mr. Bonds in town. It’s been what, five consecutive years of finishing out of the money, most of them occupying the cellar?”

     With a sigh, Andy admitted, “Sad but true,” then reasoned, “The Cubs can compete for talent in the free-agent market, leaving them less of an excuse to be also-rans. Not my Bucs. When it comes to shelling out ‘greenbacks,’ they’re no better positioned than the little sisters of the poor.”

     The evening was pleasant and mild. When returning to Karen’s place, they sprawled on her front steps. The sounds of the city echoed from every direction—white noise if you’re a resident. “It’s not a cornfield, but it’ll have to do,” she said.  

     “I like it,” said Andy. “As a boy at Saint Pete’s, I wondered about big cities, dreamed about them.”

     As they sat enveloped by sounds unique to urban culture, with nighttime fallen in the windy city, each pondered, inwardly, two truths and one question: They shared a name and were bound by a decades-old act that lingered like a portentous shadow. Would these aspects prove enough to hold them together while they familiarize themselves with what they have become as they try and build anew?

     “You have yet to tell me what you think of our Sister Mary Veronica; surely, it must have come as a surprise?”

     Andy detected a note of disapproval, or worse, Karen had made an effort to conceal disdain for a woman once called Emma Trumaine, determined to live out her remaining years in a convent.

     “I don’t mind that she took religious orders and has a mission,” Karen began, then paused and frowned. “That’s not entirely true; it bothered me initially when she shared her intentions and solicited my opinion. How is one supposed to react? And it wasn’t that our mother as a nun was inconceivable, but a person could count on the hand of Three Finger Brown how many mothers of grown children enter a convent.” 

     “It’s probably more common than we suspect,” Andy theorized. “And just who in the hell is Three Finger Brown?”

     “He pitched for the Cubs back when Roosevelt and Taft were president. ‘The Dead Ball Era.’ He’s even in the Hall of Fame, elected in ‘49.”

     “I’m impressed.”

     “You should be. I’m more than a pen-wielding broad; I know the whole history of the team I cover. Anyway, our mother and I had a brief falling out over the matter. Correction: it was mainly me who had the falling out. She, who had yet to become Sister Mary Veronica, got it into her head that my life would not make sense, nor could I make any use of it, until I got close to God and was as unrelenting as a dog with a bone. She couldn’t let it go, and it made no difference that a conversation began with the weather or the circus coming to town; we always ended in the same place: the foot of the cross. The tedium became unbearable until one day, I yelled angry, regretful words.”

     Following a brief pause that invited curiosity, Andy said, “If you don’t mind me asking….”  

     “Not at all,” said Karen. “But, bear in mind, I was flustered when I told her, ‘This God in whom you place so much faith, who provided the rich earth you so fondly blather on about, placed Andy in our path, or us in his, and gave the world Schubert, also created my father.’ I ended the tirade, telling her, ‘He whom you insist I get closer to is a helluva prankster when showing off His versatility. I would indulge my curiosity to see what else He keeps in His bag of tricks, but I have but one body to offer the predators He creates.’ That was it, word for word, minus a few decibels and a great big thrust at the end. After spewing my venom, our mother grabbed her hat and raincoat and ran away crying. I didn’t have to guess her destination; she went to church to pray for my wretched soul. I looked out the window and watched her little form making its way through the pouring rain. That’s when it finally occurred to me there was more than one victim at 18 Court Street. We were all victims, even you, perhaps, especially you. We were all affected differently and for different reasons; we can’t begin to quantify the consequences of… him. But I cannot accept that men are born evil; something pushes them, shapes them until they grow blind to what they have become.” 

     “You’re right.” Attached to Andy’s concession was both the burden of denial and the unburdening of acknowledgment. What rang clear, though, was that all three of them, be it in Chicago, Western, or Eastern Pennsylvania, would need to unite to close the chapter of their conjoined lives as it unfolded at 18 Court Street.

     The former miler and his admirer woke the following morning, having whittled away two decades and vowed no absence of any length would ensue. They breakfasted at the same café; then Andy departed Chicago with his Clemente jersey, Pirates ball cap, and a card collection he looked forward to showing Young Ray. Saying goodbye didn’t come easy. As Andy was about to drive off, it finally occurred to Karen to ask, “How’d you know to find our mother at St. Mary’s?”

     “I didn’t; St. Mary’s was my third try.”

     A quizzical look came over Karen. She asked Andy, “How’d you know to look in any convent?”

     “Would you believe me if I told you it came to me in a dream?” Andy didn’t bother confessing that a twenty-year-old dream invaded his subconscious long before Sister Mary Veronica became mindful of her destiny. “Incidentally, how long had you been waiting to use that ‘Three Finger Brown’ line?”

     “Go back to Pennsylvania!”

     “I wasn’t kidding about the dream. On my honor, I’ll tell you all about it next time we’re together, which will be sooner than later.” Then Andy drove off.

*****

     “Welcome to Pennsylvania!” Andy shouted. A burst of joy coursed through his veins when motoring across the Ohio/Pennsy state line. “Patti, Ray, Buddy, here I come!”

     Chicago to Clarks Summit was too long a trip for one day. Andy put himself up in the same motel across from the diner where the flirtatious Wendy Carlson awaited him come the morning. Inspired would best describe Andy’s demeanor after awakening from a glorious sleep. He planted himself in a booth, sipped coffee whose properties were unnecessary, and skimmed a newspaper: Loomis Bank Robbery Said to be Largest Cash Heist in U.S. History. STS 86 Shuttle Returns to Earth. Hurricane Kills 123 in Acapulco. The breadth of what it means to be human, irrespective of how vast the universe, must rank as unparalleled, was the thought the former miler chewed on. Glibly, he added to the menagerie, “Man reunites with adoptive sister decades after slaying her father.”   

     Andy couldn’t bid farewell to Western Pennsylvania without dropping in on Maxi and Lucinda. He arrived at Saint Pete’s in time for lunch. The cafeteria rang with the clamor of yesteryear. He embraced it, breathed it in, and took his place at the table among the orphans of Saint Pete’s. In searching their faces, he brushed up against his past—it coddled his heart, caressed his skin, and formed a pool of gentle water into which he gratefully dove—and it was with joy, not pathos, that these children reinforced not what he once was but shall always be. 

     He formed a triangle, sitting two children removed from Maxi and across from Lucinda. There came upon them a moment when all three locked onto one another’s gaze, their minds flung across the years to the infirmary not long after a young boy crept away during the night to die. Ruffling the hair of a smudged-faced boy sitting beside her, Lucinda cried, “You’re home, Andy.”

     Peace flourished in his soul as the former miler motored along Interstate 80. Passing Clintonville, Andy remembered a lost child of the world, or was Darlene an angel? The world’s lost children expect so little and often get less. Onward he traveled, wondering what became of an older man who limped but had wisdom, a girl long on innocence in a forbidding world, and others whose lives he touched and who had touched him—some irrevocably.  

     Mile after mile, until more of the Keystone was behind him than in front, Andy drove. As sometimes happens on lengthy car trips when alone, one, bound in wistful serenity, can become hypnotized by the road. Perhaps Andy was more road-weary than he realized, or other influences bent his consciousness toward an altered state. He glimpsed the horizon through a gathering white haze. Weakness crept into his hands until he couldn’t feel his grip on the wheel; ambiguity swirled in gusts, rendering him unsure whether others on the road had sped or he had slowed. Vehicles zoom at alarming speeds in brief intervals; their thrust causes Andy to shake violently. He tries to expel the words, “What’s happening,” but they get drowned out by whooshing cars and blaring horns. Or did “What’s happening” only echo in his mind? Before long, he discovered himself no longer walled in by doors and a roof but unsteadily ambling the shoulder of the road; the violent whoosh of passing cars, in unending procession, encumbers his equilibrium. A faraway voice, ethereal in its essence, calls to him; it echoes from somewhere in the distance or clouds, “Join me. Make it us that’s out here.”   

     “Patti, is that you?” he calls. “I can’t see you.”

     There came another voice, more youthful. It calls to Andy, “You did love the lake, didn’t you, Andy?”

     “Did I love the lake?” Andy stirs like one on the threshold of a great discovery, then repeats the question. The gathering haze thickens and blots out the horizon. Next, thousands of images parade past, on, and on, their swiftness more alarming than the whooshing cars. Backward in time, the images travel; they flicker such that they deny capture—none among the array could Andy pluck and cherish—and then the Earth stood silent and still. The sensation of cool grass settles beneath his feet as they stand together again in the meadow, Andy and the tiny child. He feels the warmth of a little hand inside his much larger one. He falls to his knees before the child and, with great joy, cries, “I can see you!” 

     The child smiles at Andy and touches his face. Andy recalls a day many years ago, walking into the infirmary and seeing Little Joe lying there, his Pirates cap held loosely in his fingertips. Upon departing, an enigmatic smile that seemed to belie the dying boy’s fate had haunted Andy. Or was it a foreshadowing? Next, Andy sees a vision of Patti frolicking in Lake Nuangola. Gazing into the child’s eyes, Andy swells with the wonder one can only experience when brushing up against the mystery of faith. He cries to the child, “You saw my life unfold from your deathbed! You’ve been guiding me all along!”  

     Again, the tiny child smiles at Andy. Andy’s heart overflows with joy. The moment, its transcendental essence, like countless others in an infinite universe, passes. Andy staggers toward the guardrail, his senses stormed upon by the whooshing of speeding cars. Above, echoing from somewhere beyond, ring the words, “I knew you’d make it, Andy. I knew you would.”  

     From his knees, Andy tilts his head skyward. Ascending beyond all worldly wisdom, from within his soul, burns faith that somewhere afar, in a domain we call the universe, resides an undersized boy in an oversized Pirates cap who has watched over him for all the days of his life. He cries to the Heavens, “We were like real brothers, Little Joe. We were.”

     The gathering haze begins dissipating as the former miler limps to his car. Behind the wheel, Andy cried, “How’d you get here?”

     “The lost children of the world are its true angels. You did good, Soldier.”

     “Who am I, Darlene?”

     “One who walks with God. And speaking of the Boss, He’d like a word.”

     Andy felt gravel crunching beneath his feet. An old man, bent at the waist, bearded face hovering above an engine, waves Andy over. “I think I finally fixed her,” he tells Andy as he pats his forehead with a handkerchief. “Give it a go.”

     Andy twists the ignition key. Seamlessly, an idle engine rumbles. “Ah-ha,” the old man gleefully intones. She’s music to my old ears.” His gaze pierces Andy as he says, “All things restored, all things renewed,” then turns to leave.

     “Where are you going?” Andy asks the oldster, confused as to why he was summoned.

     “Why, I’m off to The Snow Shoe,” the oldster replies with a lilt.

     Confusion registers on Andy’s mien. The old man’s gaze grows solemn. “They’re out there, Andy, road-weary travelers, desperate for a meal and longing for a purpose. They have a common desire: to lay down their heads, knowing they helped the world turn. You did good, Son.”

     Andy feels his hands gripping his steering wheel. The haze has disappeared; the road is visible. “Goodbye, for now, Soldier.” Darlene winked and was gone.

Afterward

Karen Trumaine Forever

I once knew a boy. He was rare, perhaps the rarest ever. Try as he had to deny his light within, the more luminously it shone. Then he was gone. I was left alone to endure the moments of my life and struggle to know their meaning. Time passed and became years. Again, I saw the light, this time from afar. It delivered to my soul the message that that rare boy was my redeemer and the reason I know God. His name is Andy, and he is my brother.

     Karen told Andy, “From the moment we take our first tottering steps, the world and its wearing influences begin shaping us. We’re lucky to have one person in our corner worthy of calling a ‘true friend.’ How many do you have? Counting me, and you had better,” Karen warned, “you darn near have enough to field a ball team. Hell, Three Finger Brown never had such an array of devoted fielders!” Naturally, Karen referred to Ray, Laura, Patti, and those Andy encountered on his west-to-east pilgrimage.

     For the survivors, 18 Court Street endures as a bittersweet affair. How could it persist otherwise? As the years melt away, Karen’s Saturday sanctuary and Andy’s final night, although not pushed to the brink of oblivion, assume their rightful place in the background—their potency diminished. What stands, preserved as images evoking joy, are Karen in the bleachers, Andy running ahead of the pack, and the loveliness Emma drew from the earth. Emma gave herself to God. Andy found Patti. The seeds of Karen’s rebirth were sown the day Andy arrived in Chicago. Since then, she has learned to breathe; each step she takes further untethers her to a particular time, place, and event and aligns her with freedom’s true meaning. In a letter, Karen told Andy: For years, like an albatross, I dragged our name from place to place. There were times I was sure I’d choke if forced to utter aloud the word ‘Trumaine.’ Often, I considered changing it, but I knew somewhere out there in this wide world lived a boy who carried that name—a boy who dared to stand on the threshold of hell to rescue a girl and one I prayed would one day find me. To look at you as a man makes me proud of our name; I want to shout it from a mountaintop because you made it stand for goodness.

     Over the years, the survivors of 18 Court Street came to grasp that three people of resilience resided there, with one burdened with earthly weaknesses capable of making angels weep. How ironic that it is not man’s tyrannical impulses but his weaknesses that hasten the undoing of those in his realm. That the survivors were not destroyed stands as a tribute to their resilience. To have endured and know joy when together is attributable to their love.

     I loved the woman the world once knew as our Emma Trumaine. And although it has taken time, more and more, as days become years, I’ve grown to love and appreciate Sister Mary Veronica. However, dear brother, I must admit lying to our mother: I tell her it is through her—the Sister’s mission and devoutness—that I’ve gotten closer to God when, in truth, it’s the connection you share with Little Joe that has restored my faith. Sometimes I feel he’s with me too, that somewhere in this vast universe is an undersized boy in an oversized Pirates cap smiling down on me. It sounds bizarre, I realize, but what about the mystery of faith doesn’t? Moreover, what is life, and all its infinite possibilities, if not a transient purgatory of upstream swimming? In times of struggle, we reach for what we can to ensure survival. Some pray in a convent; others lie down in a cornfield. Whichever, it is the same longing that compels our choices: to discover our place in the chain of human souls upon the quest for eternity.  

THE END

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