Between Heaven and Earth

ERIC WALTERS

BETWEEN       
    HEAVEN
AND
    EARTH

ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

Copyright © 2012 Eric Walters

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Walters, Eric, 1957-
Between heaven and earth/Eric Walters
(Seven (the series))
Issued also in print
978-1-55469-943-8
I. Title. II. Series: Seven the series
ps8595.a598b47 2012 jc813'.54 c2012-902584-4

First published in the United States, 2012
Library of Congress Control Number:
2012938222

Summary:
DJ climbs Mount Kilimanjaro to scatter his beloved grandfather's ashes.

Orca Book Publishers is dedicated to preserving the environment and has printed this book on paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council
^®
.

Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

Design by Teresa Bubela
Cover photography by Getty Images

www.orcabook.com
Printed and bound in Canada.

15   14   13   12   •   4   3   2   1

For Nick Mednis, my kind, gentle father-in-law.
He was a wonderful father and grandfather. All the
grandchildren called him “Tampa” because the first to
come along couldn't pronounce
Grandpa
. He almost
always had a smile on his face and often a simple beret on
his head as he walked. The beret I gave the grandfather
in this story was to honor my children's Tampa. I took
it with me when my son and I climbed Kilimanjaro.
I think that would have made Tampa smile.

Contents

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ONE

The room was large and lavish, with dark oak paneling. A big mahogany desk dominated the room; overstuffed leather chairs and couches encircled it. I'd never been in a lawyer's office before. But then again, prior to a few days ago, I'd never been in a funeral home or attended a funeral either.

There were twelve of us in the room—me, my mother, my brother Steve, my mother's three sisters and two of my uncles, and my four cousins, Adam, Webb, Spencer and Bernard, who insisted on being called Bunny. These were the eleven people in the world who meant the most to me. The only person missing was the reason we were here—my grandpa. A shudder radiated through my entire body. I hoped nobody saw it. My mother reached out and placed her hand on mine.

“It's all right, DJ,” she said softly.

Her eyes were so red from crying. I knew how much she was going to miss him. I knew how much we were
all
going to miss him. I just couldn't afford to shed tears. Somebody had to be in control. That was my job.

His death had been hard on everybody, but maybe the hardest on my mother. I'd heard my Aunt Vicky talking about how we must be “reliving” my father's death. I thought that was a funny choice of words—how could a death be relived?—but I understood what she meant. That didn't mean I agreed with her, just that I understood. My father had been gone for so long, since I was really little, that I hadn't even been part of all of that. No funeral home, no visitation, no cemetery, no burial memories. I couldn't relive what I hadn't lived.

With my mother's whispered reassurance over, the room became completely silent again. It was almost as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room. Then again, since nobody seemed to be breathing, it wasn't like we needed air. We all just sat there, in silence, waiting for the lawyer to arrive. I didn't know what was in the will, and I didn't care what Grandpa was leaving me, because he'd already left so many memories. But it was a term of his will that we all needed to be there, so we had no choice. It would have been disrespectful for us not to come.

Of course that hadn't stopped my brother from trying to get out of it. Typical. If it wasn't his idea, he didn't want any part of it. Mom had finally convinced him. If she hadn't, I would have convinced him in a whole different way. Steve could be such a jerk sometimes. It was hard to believe that twins could be so different, but we rarely saw things the same way.

The silence seemed so
wrong
. Here we were, waiting to hear the will of a man who didn't believe in silence. He was always talking, telling stories, making jokes or singing songs. More than once, when he thought he was alone, I'd caught him humming or talking to himself. I'd even overheard him having both ends of a conversation and laughing at his own jokes. My mother always joked that he'd talk to a stone and get the stone to reply. That was just how he was. Wherever he went, he talked to complete strangers and they always talked back. He once said that strangers were just people he hadn't become friends with yet. He was so relentlessly friendly, so happy, so full of life. He
was
so full of life.

I hated seeing him in that coffin. The minister talked about how “lifelike” he looked lying there. That was garbage. That was the first time I'd ever seen him when he wasn't moving about. He was emotions in motion. He would jokingly say that he was what hyperactive kids grew up to be. He was what
I
would like to grow up to be, but that wasn't possible. For one thing, I don't have his way with people. He made everybody feel so comfortable. Total strangers felt like friends, friends felt like family, and family…well, he just made us feel like we were the most important people around. All of us. When people talked about tolerance for others, he bristled. He didn't believe in
tolerance
, he believed in
acceptance
.

Of course, I knew that everybody who was born died eventually, but I guess I didn't believe he would ever die. He told me he was going to live forever or die trying. He died trying. He was getting ready to put in a whole new garden. It was going to be more work than many men half his age could handle. He was looking forward to going to the cottage and having all of us up to visit. He kept saying he was going to water-ski this year. I knew he wasn't; he just said that to get his daughters all worried. Ninety-two-year-old men shouldn't be water-skiing.

A few nights ago he went to bed and woke up dead. I almost chuckled. He would have liked that—the rhyme of
bed
and
dead
, a little limerick in the making. One minute he was so full of life and the next—nothing. Everybody told us it was a wonderful way to go. No suffering. So for him, I was happy. But it just made it harder for the rest of us. We hadn't had time to adjust, to get used to the idea that he was gone. I still half expected him to walk into the room and—

The door opened and everybody turned as a man in a suit walked in.

“Good afternoon,” he said as he settled in behind the desk.

There was a mumble of responses from across the room.

“Thank you for coming,” he said. “My name is John Devine, and I've been David's lawyer for twenty years. This is a very sad day, and I must admit that this was a day I didn't expect to be part of. I'm much younger than David, but even so, I expected him to outlive me.”

That comment generated smiles and nods.

“He was a man of so much passion. It was a true joy to have known him.”

That was my grandpa. He
was
a joy.

“The terms of the will are both straightforward and, shall we say, most interesting.” Mr. Devine paused and smiled. “And with a most interesting twist.”

Interesting
was such an interesting word. It could mean almost anything.

“Let's begin with the more conventional parts,” he said. “All of David's assets—his home, investments and cottage—are to be divided equally among his daughters.”

That was fair, and he was always fair.

“All of these assets, with the exception of the cottage, are to be liquidated and dispersed to the four heirs. The cottage's ownership will be transferred to list his daughters as co-owners. It says, and I quote, ‘This was a place of so many great memories shared with my family that I wish it to be used in perpetuity by my grandchildren and their children and their children.'” He paused. “Is that all clear?”

There was a murmuring of agreement and nodding of heads. I was happy. Some of my best memories were from the cottage. Weekends and summers spent with all of my cousins and our parents and Grandpa.

“Excellent,” Mr. Devine said. “Now I need to set out the next part—the interesting part—of the will. A sum of money—a rather substantial sum—has been put aside to fund an undertaking…or I should say,
seven
undertakings.” He paused. “This is without a doubt one of the most unusual clauses that I have ever been asked to put in a will.”

He looked slowly from person to person, deliberately pausing at each one. Everybody was staring directly at him, leaning forward in their seats. He certainly had everybody's complete, undivided attention—even Steve's.

Just read the thing, I thought.

“I know you are
all
anxious to hear about these undertakings. However, I cannot share them with all of you at this moment.”

There was an eruption of confused protest.

“Please, please!” he said, cutting the protest short. “You will
all
be fully informed, but not all of you will be informed at the same time. Some people will have to leave the room prior to the undertakings being read.”

I knew where this was going; he was going to ask the grandkids to leave. That wasn't fair. I understood the younger ones being asked to leave, but why me? I was almost eighteen—well, in a few months—and it wasn't like I wasn't mature enough to handle anything. And it wasn't as if my father was here to support my mother—that was my role. I should be allowed to stay even if the other five grandsons had to leave.

Mr. Devine continued. “Therefore, as per the terms of the will, I request that the grandsons—”

“I'm not going anywhere,” Steve said.

Everybody turned to him.

“I don't want to be kicked out of the room,” he reiterated.

“You'll go if you're told to go,” I said forcefully.

“You don't understand,” the lawyer said. “He
can
stay.”

“If he's staying, then I'm staying as well,” I said.

“And me too,” added my cousin Webb.