Hearts Left Behind (25 page)

Then, cheek to cheek, he said to her, “What’s the
matter, Katie?  Don’t be afraid.  Do I look like the Big Bad Wolf to
you, Katie?”

Strangely, when she began to cry, it calmed him
completely and he said, “It feels good not to struggle, Katie.”

At some point in the insidiousness that followed,
Katie cried just a little too loud and he put his hands over her face to quiet
her.  He did not
notice when she had
stopped making any kind of noise at all.  Panicked, he wrapped her
lifeless body in bed sheets he had pulled from the hall closet.  He went
to the kitchen and pulled down a bottle of Scotch.  He took a long drink
and it calmed him.  Grandma was going to be back from Glidden soon, so he
had to act fast.

He carried Katie’s body to the garage and laid it on
the floor.  Then he backed his truck into his garage, put Katie’s lifeless
body in the truck bed and threw a crumpled tarp over the top of her, weighing
down the edges with bricks.  He dumped the body in the high weeds along
the side of the train tracks leading out of Willow Grove.

Later on, as the entire town searched the streets of
Willow Grove for Katie, Grandpa pulled Keller aside and planted his lie about
seeing Slim Jim and Katie.  He was actually surprised at how easily he was
able to persuade his old bud Alvin to make that phone call to the sheriff’s
office.

“It was coming back into town that I saw them,
Alvin.  Saw Katie and that drifter right at the railroad tracks
together. 
Must have been about 4:30.”

Affecting a tone of harried confusion he continued,
“Mary Lynn would kill me if she knew I’d left little Heather alone in the house
like that – even if she was napping.  And what kind of witness would that
make for anyway?  A grandfather who’s left his baby granddaughter alone so
he can go get
schnockered
– and then driving drunk on
top of it?  I’d hate to think Slim Jim would get away with this just
because I screwed up, Alvin.”

“So, what do we do, Hollis?  What do we do if the
anonymous tip isn’t enough?”

At this Grandpa grabbed Alvin by the shoulders and
gave him the most earnest look he could muster.  “Alvin, if that time
comes, I need you to tell folks that it was you who saw that hobo with that
Cooper girl by the railroad tracks.  It was him who killed her,
Alvin.  You know that.  A complicated story and he may walk. 
Not to mention the trouble it could bring on me.  I may be a drunk, Alvin,
but I’m no liar.  And I know what I saw.  Hell, we all know it was
Slim Jim killed that girl, right?”

“Right, right.”

Old Man Keller paused for a long moment and with a
determined and distant look he said, “Sheriff Buck, I’m calling to say that I
think I know who killed that Cooper girl.”

When I finished reading
the letter, I folded it and slipped it back inside the envelope.   It
represented the death of so much that I briefly considered digging a tiny grave
and burying the letter itself.  But I had done enough burying of late, so
instead I walked the graveyard with that letter safely in my hands, taking in
the sight of the many-colored envelopes adorning the graves.  Reading the
names on each headstone as I passed, searching for one name in particular.

Buck.

We went to Church on Father’s Day.

I sat dead center in the in the middle of the pew with
a straight and clear path to the altar laid out in front of me.  I could
still see Ethan’s tiny white coffin at the end of it.

Behind the altar on the east wall of the church, the
stained glass image of an open-armed Jesus confronted me.  He was larger
than He had ever been and His eyes met mine.  His open arms welcomed me
closer.

“Tucker, would you mind holding Griffin while I dig
out a towel?” my cousin Allison asked.  Griffin, who had been born just
three weeks after Ethan, had spit-up and Allison was looking for something to
clean her lapel with.

“Sure.”

His chest expanded and air whistled from his
nose.  I closed my eyes and held him tight to my chest, listening to the
beautiful sound of blessed breathing.  He was so warm it almost killed
me.  Trails of tears began to stream down my face, leaving my mouth
salty.  I opened my eyes to again see the arms of Jesus opened before me
and I held that baby boy tighter, couldn’t imagine letting go.

When Allison turned back to me to take him, she saw me
crying and realized everything all at once.  “Oh, Tucker.  How stupid
of me.  I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay. 
Really.”

“No, it’s not.  That was just really
insensitive.  I’m so sorry.”

I sat back down and waited for the faithful to file
out.  Florence Howell stopped to tell me that the Tuesday night prayer
group had read some of the poems I had written for Ethan and thought they were
beautiful.

“We’re praying for your family,” she said reaching out
for my hand with a smile as she turned to walk away.

When all had left, I looked up once more at
Stained-Glass Jesus and I thanked Him.

There is no such thing as fate, only momentum. 
When life is carrying you someplace you don’t want to go, you need to muster
the strength to take a step in a different direction.  And to go where you
want to go, you have to believe what you want to believe.  See, while it
would have been very easy for me to question myself and where I’d come from, I
could not allow myself to question where I was now and where I wanted to go. 
That blood, that same blood that ran through my roots now runs through my
branches.  It runs through Tory today and yesterday I wiped that blood
from Ethan’s face as it drained from his tiny nose.  I put it on my hands
and held it to my eyes.  I can testify to its purity, swear by its
beauty.  I have seen that blood myself and I can tell you that while it
means everything, it also means nothing at all.

The killer’s blood runs through my veins and I say let
it run, because we are so much more than blood.  We are all that we have
learned and we are every place that we learned it.  We are nature and
nurture and we are more.  We are what
has
happened to our parents and to theirs and to theirs and to more.  We are
what
has
happened to our friends and to our neighbors,
and to those we don’t even know.  We are the sum total of all
experience.  Every good and bad thing that we take in with a sense and
process with a sensibility is a brushstroke on our canvas.  Wide or
narrow, sweeping or subtle, all of these things are paint on our picture.

Ethan was a stone tossed in the ocean, the ripples
from which extend far beyond the point of impact, even beyond the life
opportunity his death presented for his little sister born the following April
or his baby brother who arrived the year after that.  Ethan’s death will
never be understood.  His physical presence in our lives was all too
brief, but his impact has rippled the waters of eternity just as surely as
Christ himself has.  And so I won’t ask God any more questions about
Ethan, but if it is His will to someday shower us with answers, I will lift my
face to the sky and let the rains of understanding wash over me.  Until
that time comes, though, I will only ever ask for strength and guidance,
patience and wisdom.  I will be grateful for the sun that rises and the
sun that sets.  I will look away from rainbows and shooting stars so that
I might catch the wonder of them in the eyes of my children in those
moments.  Because it is the moments that matter, for that is where life is
lived.  Whether you die at birth or live to a hundred, your life is but a
moment.  And yet it’s a moment that will last forever.

In the hearts left behind.

I keep seeing you out of the corner of my eye,

But I can never seem to get you in focus.

I
keep loving
you in the
corner of my heart

But that love just never seems to be enough.

I keep thinking of you in the corner of my mind

But I can’t seem to find a memory there.

And I keep holding these arms open for you

But you won’t come and warm them.

I can’t live without you, son.

But I will.