Beyond the Farthest Star (9 page)

Anne’s mind was heavy with sleep. “Not hungry.”

Adam loomed behind Maurene. “Get up, Anne,” he ordered. “Come eat.”

Reluctantly, Anne roused herself and followed Adam and her mother to the dining room. The table was set with familiar china and silverware. So Maurene had finally found the energy to unpack the dishes. The musty house smelled like roast beef and garlic bread. Baked potatoes and a heaping green salad were on the table.

Adam prayed a perfunctory blessing. The food was passed, and plates were filled.

Father. Mother. Daughter. Sitting down to a meal together. A real Norman Rockwell moment. The all-American family.

But no one ate. No one spoke as Maurene silently read Anne’s poem.

Anne, sick with the misery of the day’s events, stared down at her plate.

Maurene looked up at Adam. Her face was filled with pain. “It’s really very good, Adam. It has passion. A relentless Poe-esque use of imagery and a fierce sense of—”

Adam leaned forward. “It has alien pods, Maurene.”

“And slime,” Anne interjected, just to remind them that she was present at the discussion.

Adam blurted, “What?” It was as though he was surprised she was listening. He turned his attention on her then. Controlled and patronizing, he spoke too slowly. “Anne. Do you remember our discussion? Anne? Do you?”

“Yes.” Anne did not look at him. The roast beef was cold.

Maurene’s voice took on a hard edge, warning her husband. “All right, Adam.”

He reached across the table and snatched the poem from Maurene. “Then maybe you’d agree that saying your blood is like acid is not a happy thought?”

Maurene’s tone became angry. “Adam!”

He was relentless. “Would you agree, Anne, that saying—”

Tears brimmed in Anne’s eyes. “Yes! I agree!”

Maurene’s gaze burned into Adam. “All right. That’s enough.”

Adam bored ahead, going after Anne. “Do you
want
to get better, Anne?”

Anne raised her eyes and glared at her father. Maurene shouted, “That’s enough, Adam!”

He threw down his napkin and leaned back in his chair. Maurene picked up the poem. She spoke gently. “What do you mean when you describe the night as being barren and infertile?”

Anne implored, “May I be excused?”

Adam spat, “No!”

Maurene reached out to her. “It doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that your father and I have been unable to have another baby?”

Adam argued, “This is not about us, Maurene!”

Maurene reached again for Anne’s hand. “Does it, sweetheart?”

“I would really like to be excused now.” Anne pulled away.

Adam argued past Anne. “This is about the fact that our daughter is—”

“
—not
a potential high school terrorist, Adam!” Maurene challenged. “That you could even think that!”

Anne studied their faces. She might as well not have been there. Might as well have been excused. Her parents battled through her and over her and about her, but they were really fighting some other battle.

Adam spoke through clenched teeth. “You’re excused, Anne.”

She jerked her chair back and stood but could not escape before Adam unloaded on her one last time. “Oh, and, Anne, I don’t know how you and your Magic Pillow are gonna learn my favorite hymn if the hymnal’s in the trash.” He reached down and
retrieved the soiled hymnal, then tossed it toward her on the table. “Don’t let this out of your possession again.”

Anne grabbed the book and shoved it into her backpack before she stomped out of the door. And then she paused, hand on the banister, and listened.

Maurene’s voice challenged, “Did you even read the poem, Adam?”

“Of course I read …”

The clatter of dishes obscured his words. “Then you did not understand it.”

“I understand,” he defended.

“If all you’re upset about is the fact that your staff meeting was interrupted by some ridiculous call from the police … And I don’t care what post-Columbine procedure is—they have no business investigating a high school English assignment.”

“I understand, Maurene, that if we fail in Leonard, there will be no other offers to pastor. So sorry if I don’t get excited about the poem’s Poe-esque use of imagery and its fierce sense of—”

“Honest! It’s honest! It’s how she feels, Adam!”

“It’s only the same old mess starting over again.”

“You really don’t understand, do you? How could you not?”

The jarring sound of the chair scraping back was a reflection of his emotion. “I understand, Maurene! I found her, remember? And since, I’ve tried to connect … to make her feel …”

“Like your daughter?”

“But our lives have to go on, and I will not be respectfully asked to step down from a third pastorate in five years over another one of her tantrums. Not this time. Not now!”

“Now that CNN is sending satellite trucks to Leonard, you mean?”

Adam fell silent, waiting.

Maurene pleaded. “We’d still have each other, Adam.”

The sound of his footsteps retreated, then halted.

She continued. “Even if you were a floor greeter at Bigmart, we’d still—”

“My father didn’t raise me to be a floor greeter. Sorry if you don’t, and never have, understood that.”

Anne slipped out of the house and onto the porch. From the shadows she watched her parents through the floral curtains. Adam grabbed his briefcase and charged off toward his study while Maurene collapsed onto a chair.

So much for the Norman Rockwell happy-family moment.

Anne turned away and walked slowly down the driveway just as Stephen’s pickup rolled to a stop under the giant inflatable Santa.

“Hey!” Stephen hollered.

Anne slipped into the pickup, then spotted a silver Porsche parked under a streetlight ahead of them. The man inside stepped out and stared after her as Stephen pulled from the curb.

“So what’s up?”

M
YRA WAS HOME FROM DALLAS.
She was particularly gray and gaunt. Though she had been back for only a few hours, Kyle knew that Jackson had already been hurling abuse at her.

Kyle felt her pitying eyes follow him as he silently made his way down the dark hallway of the trailer to the cubicle he called his room.

“Why does she keep coming back?” Kyle wondered. “Why do I stay?” Maybe because neither of them had any place to go. But someday … someday … Kyle vowed that he and Stephen were gonna make it big. Bullriders—palm prints on the wall at Billy Bob’s like all the other country-western stars.

He stood amid the squalor of his room. His eyes fell on a thing of beauty. There, hanging face out in the tiny closet, was a rhinestone-studded duster!

Myra appeared in the doorway behind him. She leaned against the frame. Her leathery face cracked with a slight smile. “Got a call today. On the machine when I got home. They want the Bullriders to play Homecomin’ this year. I thought that might be helpful.”

Kyle nodded once. He did not want her to see the emotion in his eyes. “Bullriders,” he whispered, running his fingers over the duster. “Yeah. Homecomin’. I just gotta solve one little problem.” He turned slightly. “Thanks, Myra.”

“No problem,” she answered.

From the kitchen Jackson Tucker roared, “YOU AIN’T HIS MOTHER!”

How had they come to this? Adam tore through the packing boxes until he found a file marked PRESS. He sat slowly on his desk chair and flipped open the file that held the memories of such promise and hope. He flipped through the clippings. PINT-SIZED PREACHER PRAYS WITH PREZ. And another: MIRACLE PREACHER BOY HOLDS BIG TENT REVIVAL.

And his face as a ten-year-old on the cover of
Time
magazine: AMERICA’S NEXT BILLY GRAHAM?

Adam relived each headline, smiling softly, finding his focus in what had been … and what had been planned for his life.

Maurene’s voice broke his reverie. “She’s not afraid of you, Adam, like you were afraid of your father.”

He did not look up. “I revered my father. But … maybe not enough.”

Bitterly, Maurene pulled out Adam’s “Sarah Laughed” speech. “So I suggest you consider a different approach if you really want poems about blue skies and sunny days.” Maurene placed the speech onto the heap of Adam’s press clippings. “And I don’t ever want to hear the story of Sarah again. Do you understand me?” She left the room.

His eyes brimmed as he stuffed the speech into his file and then pulled out a child’s finger painting. Anne’s finger painting. His throat constricted with longing for the child who had once loved him.

At the top of the painting was the primitive lettering MY FAMILY. There was a mom and a dad and a little girl holding hands. And above them were the stars … the stars Anne had asked Adam to draw for her.

How had they come to this terrible night? Adam shook his head and wiped his cheeks with the back of his hand.

He had been so young when his father had groomed him to be some sort of a preaching prodigy. Verbal and physical whippings had kept him in line. Made him practice when he really wanted to be outside playing first base on the neighborhood stickball team.

It was a mercy that the howling wind had stopped. Somehow the still night calmed Anne. She sat beside Stephen on the tailgate of his pickup and looked up at the dilapidated screen of the abandoned drive-in movie theater. Stars glinted through torn holes in the screen.

Stephen’s voice was wistful with memory. “I kinda remember how my father used to bring me here when I was little. I didn’t really know what was goin’ on … but I remember he was always impressed by the electricity between the actors.”

Anne stared at the shredded screen. “Chemistry, you mean.”

“Huh? Oh, right. No. Not for my old man. He worked fer the power company, so he liked to speak more in terms of ampere and ohm, and, well …” He turned to her. “I guess what I’m tryin’ to say is that I think you and I have—”

“Time to go.” Anne hopped off the tailgate.

“Wait, Annie! I was tryin’ to tell you—”

“That you think you and I have all this ohm between us. I know. I get it.”

“Yes. I mean, don’t you?”

“Then you were gonna try and put your mouth on me.”

He laughed. “Right. I mean, wrong! I would never try and do that, Annie. Never. I mean … why would I … try?”

“So I won’t have to hurt you, you mean?”

He laughed nervously. “Yeah, right.”

She stared at Stephen, then looked up at the sky. “Ever think about the stars, Sticks-boy?”

“Gwyneth. I think about Gwyneth Paltrow sometimes, but not since—”

She explained. “No. The star—stars.” Anne’s gaze was fixed on something very far away.

“Oh, yeah, right. Sure. The stars.”

“Like, what’s beyond the farthest one.”

He frowned. “Pretty sure they don’t have a telescope that’ll even git ya as far as the farthest star, Annie. Let alone beyond.”

“I used to know.” His skeptical expression sparked a surge of anger in her. “But not now. Now all I know is what you know. What everybody else knows.”

“That being?”

Anne shook her head slightly. “That we all live under this terrifyingly unsolvable mystery that no one ever talks about. Ever.”

Stephen stared at Anne for a long moment. She knew he did not comprehend what she was saying. He asked, “So you don’t let anyone kiss you? Ever?”

Anne turned away and climbed into the pickup. What was the use of trying to explain to him? Or to anyone? She longed for the days when she had known what … or who … was beyond the farthest star. She did not remember exactly how, or when, she had lost her faith.

Kyle heard the reality TV show blaring from the living room as he made his way quietly toward the front door. A quick glance across the trashed room showed Myra curled up on the couch while Kyle’s dad snored in his recliner. An empty whiskey bottle lay beneath Jackson’s fingertips.

Kyle slipped out the door and hurried up the dirt driveway to
his father’s pickup. Pushing the speed dial for Stephen’s cell, he glanced over his shoulder like an escaping prisoner.

Stephen’s voice mail answered: “Hey. This is Stephen. Leave your name and number, and I’ll get back to ya.”

Kyle whispered hoarsely, “Hey, man. Got great news ‘bout the Bullriders that can’t wait till mornin’ to tell. Be by.”

Signing off, he set the phone on the hood of the pickup and pulled the latch on the driver’s side door. It was unlocked. With a smile, he crawled into the cab. Looking for the keys, he swiped under the floor mat and whipped his hand across the dashboard. Opening the glove compartment, he hesitated as his hand closed around something heavy and L shaped, wrapped in a worn red mechanic’s rag. He pulled it out and unwrapped it: a   45 caliber Glock handgun.

He whispered, “Inger’s surprise.”

Suddenly an angry banging on the roof of the pickup interrupted his thoughts. The beam of a flashlight filled the interior. Kyle turned to see the set of keys dangling in the beam of the Maglite.

The alcohol-slurred voice of his father snarled, “You lookin’ fer these? I
said,
you lookin’ fer these, boy?”

Kyle rewrapped the handgun while turning his body to block his father’s view. “Lunch money. Fer school.”

“I’ll leave a fiver on the table in the mornin’. Now get out of my vehicle and back in the house to bed.”

The flashlight drifted away from the driver’s side door as Kyle returned the Glock to the glove box.