Hidden Places (32 page)

‘‘I was afraid of my father when I was a kid. He talked so loudly when he was angry that he made the walls of the house shake— and my father was angry all the time, usually at me. He expected a lot from me because I was his firstborn son, but I couldn’t seem to do anything right. Sometimes my insides would get all twisted up in knots until I thought I was going to be sick, and when he asked me a question the knot would spread to my tongue so I couldn’t talk. The more my father hollered and yelled at me, the w...worse it got.’’

I heard the powerful emotions in Gabe’s voice as he stumbled over the word, and I knew he wasn’t just making the story up to help Luke feel better.

‘‘P-promise y-you won’t tell anyone?’’ Luke asked softly.

‘‘I promise.’’

‘‘I was s-scared of my g-grandpa.’’

Tears filled my eyes at his words. I remembered how Luke had tried to follow Grandpa Wyatt around after Sam died, so hungry for the love and attention Sam had given him, but the old man could never find it in his heart to show affection. The only emotion he knew how to show was anger. He’d been mean and hateful for so many years that all his feelings came out the same way. So if one of the boys worried him or frightened him, any concern he might have felt came out of his mouth as rage. If Frank had ever loved his children or his grandchildren, he’d never known how to tell them.

‘‘Know what else?’’ Luke asked. His voice was so close to a whisper I had to stand stock still, careful not to rustle the straw or creak a floorboard, in order to hear him. ‘‘I was w-with Grandpa...when...he f-fell.’’

I caught my breath, unaware I was holding it until my lungs nearly burst. Gabe’s voice was gentle. ‘‘The day he died, you mean?’’

‘‘Uh-huh. Grandpa fell over...and then he looked up at me. He said ‘help’...but I r-ran away.’’

‘‘Because you were scared, Luke?’’

‘‘No...Iwas m-mad. Grandpa wouldn’t help Daddy when he got sick. So I w-wouldn’t help Grandpa.’’

I covered my face and wept silent tears. God help me, I might have done the same thing if Frank Wyatt had asked me for help. But it nearly broke my heart to think that Luke had carried such a heavy burden all alone, all this time. I was about to give myself away, to run and gather Luke in my arms, when I heard Gabe say, ‘‘Come here, son.’’

I could tell by the shuffling sounds and by Luke’s muffled sobs that Gabe had taken him in his arms. I think all three of us were crying, because when Gabe spoke again his voice was breaking.

‘‘Listen, Luke...and I want you to really listen. Every single one of us has done things when we’re angry that we’re sorry for later.’’

I remembered the angry words I’d hurled at my daddy and I stifled a sob.

‘‘But God knows if we’re sorry in our hearts—and He forgives us. Then we need to forgive ourselves. But listen to me...are you listening, Luke? It wasn’t your fault that your grandfather died. It
wasn’t
. Even if you had gone for help as soon as your grandfather fell, it wouldn’t have made any difference. Your mama told me he had a heart attack. And there’s not a thing in the world anyone could’ve done about it. Do you understand? Not you, not the doctor...no one. You don’t need to feel bad about it anymore.’’

Luke began to weep, great heartbreaking cries that I knew would heal him in the end. I quickly turned and ran from the barn so that I could mourn for all that Luke had lost. It wasn’t until later, when I’d returned to the kitchen to help Aunt Batty make supper, that I remembered what Gabe had said—
I was my father’s firstborn son
. Just like Matthew.

‘‘Is Becky all right?’’ I asked Aunt Batty as I pulled a paring knife out of the drawer to help her peel potatoes.

‘‘She’s fine. We had a little talk. Did you get everything straightened out with poor little Luke?’’

‘‘Gabe is talking to him,’’ I said. Then I had another thought. ‘‘Aunt Batty, did Matthew stutter when he was a boy?’’

The potato she was peeling slipped out of her hand and rolled across the table. She quickly scooped it up, then patted my arm with her starchy hand. ‘‘Don’t you worry about little Luke. He’ll outgrow his stuttering one of these days.’’

‘‘Like Matthew did?’’

She didn’t answer me, concentrating as she peeled the skin off in one long, dangling curl—a trick I had never mastered.

‘‘Trouble plagued Matthew’s life from the moment he was conceived,’’ she finally said. ‘‘I often wondered if he would have had a happier life if Lydia had given him up for adoption like I wanted her to. Of course, then I would have been the one who’d had to endure Frank Wyatt all those years.’’

I didn’t say anything to Gabe during supper, but after we’d eaten and I’d cleaned up the dishes, I went out to the barn to find him and thank him for talking to Luke. The light was on in the workshop where Gabe slept, so I knocked on the door. He didn’t answer. I pushed it open and peeked inside.

‘‘Gabe?’’

The room was empty. Not two feet away, propped on an overturned apple crate, stood Gabe’s typewriter. There was a sheet of paper in it with words typed on it. The paper stuck out as if he had walked away in the middle of writing something. My curiosity was too great to resist. I bent over to read it:

My father is everywhere. There are no pictures of him, no pipes or tobacco pouches or favorite chairs to remind me of his habits and gestures, but he’s everywhere, just the same. He’s in the wind that whistles through the open door of the barn and raises the dust I forgot to sweep.I hear his voice, feel his censure in the sagging fence post and in the tool I failed to return to its proper place.

I came back to make amends with him. I came back because I missed the land and I longed for home all the years I was away. Every field and barn I marched past in France beckoned to me to stop and to turn a spade through the rich earth and to inhale the familiar fragrance of horse and hay. I was once reproved for breaking rank to stopbeside a pasture fence to stroke a mare, but I craved the familiar roughness of her tawny coat. I offered a French farmer my weekly allotment of cigarettes if he would simply allow me to come inside his barn and milk his only cow.

I hated my father, but I loved the land. Eventually the love outweighed the hatred and it drew me home. I hungered for the changing seasons in the orchard: the stark beauty of naked branches against the winter sky; the lacy pink capes that clothed them in spring; the fruit hanging heavy from them in summer like gaudy jewels; the leafy flames that consumed them at the autumn sacrifice. I came home to make amends, to say I was sorry for the bitter words we’d hurled at each other when we parted. But it’s too late. My father is gone.

Yet he’s everywhere, and I cannot stay.

I’ll keep my promise to bring in the harvest, but my father is here and nothing I do pleases him. I can never be happy in a place where I’ve known so much pain....

I slipped out of the workshop and returned to the house, more certain than I’d ever been that Gabe was Matthew Wyatt. But what should I do about it? I loved Wyatt Orchards, too, and I was scared to death that I would lose it. And I was scared to death that I was in love with Gabe and certain that I would lose him. Hadn’t he just written that he could never stay here? Everything seemed so tangled up I feared I would never get it straightened out. I finally decided to wait a little longer and see what clues John Wakefield’s letter to Washington would turn up.

It was time for the hay to be cut and mowed, then forked onto the wagon and stored in the barn. It was hot, itchy work. Jimmy and Luke helped us out. School had closed a few weeks early when the district ran out of money to pay the teachers. We worked from dawn until sunset, and at the end of each long, hot day Gabe took the boys down to Aunt Batty’s pond for a swim. I once saw him pull off his shirt as they headed down the hill and I caught a quick glimpse of that terrible, jagged scar above his heart.

‘‘A few more weeks and it’ll be time for the cherry pickers to start coming,’’ Aunt Batty reminded me one morning when we’d finished the haying.

‘‘You’re right. We’d better clean up the pickers’ quarters and wash the bedding before they get here.’’ I had done it every year when Sam and Frank were still alive, so at least I would be doing a familiar job.

Aunt Batty and I were working together one morning, filling straw ticks with fresh hay when an ancient, sputtering Ford pulled into my driveway. I should have known such a relic of a car could only belong to Mr. Wakefield. He stepped out and greeted us with a bow and a tip of his hat.

‘‘Good morning, Mrs. Wyatt. Mrs. Gibson. How are you ladies this morning?’’

‘‘I’m fine, John,’’ Aunt Batty replied. ‘‘It’s good to see you again.’’ I could tell by her beaming face that if he’d given her a million dollars it wouldn’t have been as great a gift as calling her by her married name.

‘‘Would you like to come inside for a cup of coffee, Mr. Wakefield?’’ I asked. He had his briefcase with him and I wanted to be sitting down if he had any important news to share.

‘‘Well, sure, if you don’t mind. Though I hate to disturb you ladies. You look pretty busy....’’

‘‘Go ahead, Toots,’’ Aunt Batty said. ‘‘I can manage without you for a while.’’

I sat Mr. Wakefield down at my kitchen table and put a cup of coffee and a piece of Aunt Batty’s rhubarb pie in front of him as he opened his briefcase.

‘‘I have good news this time, Eliza,’’ he said. ‘‘I finally received word from Washington. They’ve confirmed that Matthew Wyatt did
not
die during the war.’’

I sank onto a chair as my knees suddenly gave out. ‘‘So...he’s alive?’’

‘‘Well, he was still alive as of December 1918. Matthew received an honorable discharge on the twelfth of that month in 1918. Here’s a copy of the information listed on his discharge papers if you’d like to see it.’’

I scanned the document while Mr. Wakefield devoured his pie. Matthew had served in the infantry as part of the American Expeditionary Forces stationed in France. The papers listed the battles and campaigns he’d participated in—Cantigny, Belleau Wood, St. Mihiel—and the decorations and citations he’d received. His hair color was listed as brown, his eyes brown, and his height and weight seemed about the same as Gabe’s, too.

‘‘What does this mean?’’ I asked. ‘‘It says ‘date of separation...destination...reason and authority for separation.’ ’’

Mr. Wakefield swallowed a quick sip of coffee before setting down his cup to explain. ‘‘Evidently Matthew was hospitalized in France for shrapnel wounds he received at the Battle of St. Mihiel shortly before the war ended. They sent him home to the United States to recover—that’s the ‘separation’ it mentions. They discharged him directly from the army hospital.’’

I recalled the scar above Gabe’s heart and wondered what a shrapnel wound looked like. ‘‘What’s the next step?’’ I asked. ‘‘We know he’s alive, but how do we go about finding him?’’

‘‘I’m going to write to the army hospital that discharged him to ask if they have a forwarding address for him. Once again, getting an answer may take a while—and a lot of time has passed since he was discharged—but I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything.’’

He eagerly accepted a second piece of pie.

I rejoined Aunt Batty after Mr. Wakefield left. My face must have told her I was upset because the first thing she asked was, ‘‘More troubles, Toots?’’

I nodded. ‘‘Mr. Wakefield came to tell me about Matthew Wyatt. It seems he didn’t die in the war after all. Matthew might still be alive.’’

She stopped stuffing straw. She closed her eyes as joy and relief flooded her face. ‘‘Matthew’s alive! Imagine! After all this time!’’

‘‘Yes, and I need to find him, Aunt Batty. The kids and I are in trouble.’’

‘‘What kind of trouble could you sweet things be in?’’

I took a deep breath and let it all out at once. ‘‘It seems that I don’t own this house or the orchard after all. Frank Wyatt willed everything to Matthew.’’

‘‘No! I don’t believe it!’’ she exclaimed. ‘‘That has to be a mistake!’’

I sat down beside her. ‘‘It’s not a mistake. Mr. Wakefield showed me Frank’s will.’’

Aunt Batty shook her head, insistent. ‘‘Frank would
never
give Wyatt Orchards to Matthew. Never in a million years! Not after he learned the truth.’’

I stared at her. ‘‘The truth? You mean Frank found out that Matthew wasn’t his son?’’

‘‘Yes.’’

I suddenly recalled a line from Gabe’s story:
The night I found out that he wasn’t my real father I felt born again
. I shivered.

‘‘Aunt Batty, did Matthew know that Frank wasn’t his real father, too?’’

‘‘Yes. They both found out. And I happened to be there the day they did....’’

Matthew’s Story

1901

‘‘And the Angel of the Lord...Touched him, and said,
Arise and eat;because the journey is too great for thee.’’