Once Beyond a Time (30 page)

“What?” she calls back.

“Can I visit Aus—” I stop myself. Gail doesn’t know I knew her
grandfather when he was young. “Can I visit Bim in the hospital?”

I’m moving toward the steps. She lifts her shoulders and looks a little surprised. “Sure, if you want. He’s at the VA. You know where that is?”

“I’ll find it.”

“Okay, but listen, don’t go today. Let him rest a few days before you go see him, all right?”

I nod. Next Saturday, then. Saturday I’ll drive over to Asheville and wander around the VA till I find Austin. And God, please don’t let him die between now and then. I’ve got to thank him for trying to find my brother.

Monday, April 14, 1969

I
AM NOT
a sinner; I’m sin itself.

Flesh, blood, bone—all of it sin. I’m filled with self-loathing. And there’s no escape.

Not unless I can crush it out, the way Ike Kerlee over there crushes out his cigarette in the ashtray. The stub of the thing, head bent, stilled under the weight of Ike’s tobacco-stained index finger.

How good it would be not to exist.

I find myself glancing continually at the office door, wondering whether it will open and Charlene will be there with the child in her arms. My child.

The weight of my wrongdoing bears down. It
will
crush me. It’s crushing me now. One son is dead. One son should never have been born.

The words on the loan application in front of me are senseless marks, without meaning. I pretend to read, to be absorbed by this paperwork, even though no customer sits at my desk. If I look busy maybe Ike will go on reading the newspaper and not try to talk to me.

I have nothing to say to him or to anyone. I am a dead man, without words.

There was a time when I thought Meg might find it in herself to
forgive me. I don’t believe that anymore. Hope is nonexistent. I have one too many children, and now I will never have a family.

I wonder, God, how you might have let this happen and then I remember—it wasn’t your fault, it was mine. When I’m tempted to be angry with you, I remind myself of that, and my anger comes back around to where it belongs. I dug my own grave with my own shovel without any help from you, and now I will lie myself down in the dark, and I will shut my eyes and you can shut yours. We are through.

I start when Ike laughs out loud. “Hey, Shel,” he says, “get this. You know that guy that was arrested for killing those people over in Asheville last year?”

I say yes even though I don’t remember.

“He’s saying he killed those folks because he heard voices telling him he had to do it. He said he had to listen to the voices or
they
would kill
him
. So that’s his defense, that he was just obeying orders so he wouldn’t be killed! Like you can’t blame him for doing what he was told to do.”

He laughs loudly again, shakes his head. I look at him with leaden eyes.

“Yessiree, nothing like copping the old insanity plea, huh?” He folds up the newspaper and slaps it down on his desk. “You get caught committing murder, and all you have to do is say you’ve lost your mind.”

The thought of losing one’s mind has some appeal.

I will never forgive myself. There is no clemency, and I’ll expect no mercy.

Thursday, April 17, 1969

H
E’LL BE HOME
soon. My son will be home safe and sound.

I press Carl’s letter to my heart and breathe deeply in relief. He’s already stateside and will be coming to us on the train. I’ll be able to put my arms around him and hold him once again.

I’m standing on the upstairs porch, looking out over the newly greened mountains. In this one sense, at any rate, spring has come. Carl is returning home safely from the war.

I find that I’m thankful, and the words rise up in my mind: thank God.

Are you the one to thank, then? You who did not keep my other son safe?

“Hello, Meg. A letter from Carl?”

I’m not surprised to find Celeste standing on the balcony beside me. Only glad. “He’s coming home, Celeste,” I say. “He should be home in about a week.”

“Thank God.”

I nod happily. “Yes.”

We’re quiet for a moment. Finally I say, “Celeste, I would like to ask you something.”

“All right.”

“That man you work for …”

“Mr. Valdez?”

“Yes. Gavan, isn’t it?”

“That’s right.”

“What was his mother’s name?”

“His mother? I have no idea. Why do you ask?”

“I think he may be Sheldon’s son.”

She looks at me with puzzled eyes. “His son?”

“How old is he?”

Celeste thinks a moment. “He must be in his mid-thirties somewhere.”

“That would be about right.”

“I don’t understand, Meg. Why do you think he’s Sheldon’s son?”

I feel my grip tighten on Carl’s letter. “Sheldon has a child with Charlene. She’s the woman he had an affair with. We’ve just found out.”

Celeste sighs. She looks out over the mountains as though looking for the answer out there. “I really don’t know much about Mr. Valdez’s personal life,” she says.

I want to ask her to ask Gavan if he knows who his father is, but somehow it doesn’t seem right to make Celeste a go-between in this. “What’s he like?” I ask. “Gavan. What can you tell me about him?”

She nods. “He’s a very good and kind man. A wonderful father to his son. He’s a theologian. He teaches at one of the colleges here.”

“A theologian.” I laugh lightly. “Well, that figures.”

“I’m sure it must have been hard on you, Meg,” she says, “to learn Sheldon has a son.”

I feel the tears well up. I don’t want to cry. “It somehow makes the infidelity more complete, doesn’t it?”

Seconds pass. I bite my lip to stifle the tears.

“Meg?”

I don’t respond.

“I’ll tell you truth, Meg,” she goes on. “If Cleve does the same to me after we’re married, I will be tempted to quietly and tenderly kill him.”

I give her a sideways glance and a crooked smile.

“And what would our Mrs. See say to that?” I ask.

Celeste smiles too now. “She would say what she has said to me a thousand times. Forgiveness is the road between heaven and earth.”

“I see.” My eyes grow small. “Is that what she thinks?”

“It’s what she knows.”

“And was her husband ever unfaithful to her?” My words taste bitter; I have to look away from Celeste.

“Well, like you, she’s had some hard things happen in her life,” Celeste says. “She’s had to learn to forgive.”

I sigh heavily. “The funny thing is,” I say, “I had felt almost ready to forgive Sheldon. It had taken me a long time, I know, but I was finally there. And now, this. He and Charlene have a baby together. And now, I’m not sure I can forgive or even want to forgive. Not when it comes to the child.”

She nods. “Even though I understand your feelings, Meg, I’m not sure we have the luxury of choosing.”

“Choosing what?”

“Which debts to forgive and which to demand payment on.”

I have to think about that. I know she’s referring to The Lord’s Prayer:
Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

“I suppose Mrs. See would still think I need to forgive Sheldon, even though there’s a child.”

“Hmmm.” Celeste nods. “She’s a stubborn one. So yes, even with a child in the picture, she would probably hold out for forgiveness.”

I sniff out a small laugh. “All right then,” I say. “Any other words of wisdom from your elderly employer?”

“As a matter of fact, yes,” Celeste says. “She told me to tell you that as long as the star is shining, you must not give up hope. You must rest in it because everything is happening as it should.”

The words of Margaret See make me shiver. It’s as though that woman can read my mind.

Saturday, April 19, 1969

T
HE WEIRD THING
about all the old geezers in this hospital is they were young once. I know that now. And I know it was time that dragged them to this awful place where they’re shriveled up, glassy-eyed, sitting in wheelchairs or shuffling around like a bunch of zombies. If they hadn’t been caught up in time, they’d still be young. And, for the first time, I realize there’s something wrong with this whole thing—I mean, this growing old and dying. Like we should all be living outside of time so we can just be young and alive forever. It makes me sad, knowing I’m on the same train these guys are on, and there’s no getting off. It’s almost enough to make a person wish she’d never been born.

Here’s the room. I have to take a deep breath before I go in. Not that I want to take in the smell of this place, which is almost enough to send me kneeling at the porcelain throne, as Carl used to say. Carl, who’s coming home from the war, who survived Vietnam, who will one day end up in a place like this anyway, old and ready to die. You can’t win for losing.

There’s Austin, looking even more dead than usual, except he’s breathing. I see the covers over his chest rise and fall. Thank God. I’m glad he’s still alive. I walk across the room, and at the sound of my footsteps he opens his eyes. He looks at me like he’s never seen me before, and he doesn’t
know who I am, but I know he’s surprised because why would he expect me to come here to see him? We look at each other for a minute without saying anything until finally, I blurt out, “Gail says you’re an old fool.”

He smiles at that, his head bobbing up and down on the pillow like he’s trying to nod. “She’s probably right.”

“You climbed up some mountain looking for Digger.”

“Yes. Yes, I did.”

“And you gave yourself a heart attack in the process.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Well, listen, I think … I mean, it was nice of you, you know, to do that. I want you to know I appreciate what you did.”

He shuts his eyes and smiles again. He looks like the words made him feel better for a few seconds. But then he looks kind of sad and says, “I only wish I could have found him.”

“But if you did,” I say, “he would still be dead. I mean, you’d have just been finding a body, and by now it’d probably be in pretty bad shape.”

“But I could have at least brought the body home for burial and given your parents—and you—some sense of peace. I wanted to do that for you.”

I nod. “Now I really know you’re Austin,” I say. “I remember how you always wanted to make everything better for people. Like you wanted to save the whole world.”

“Save the whole world,” he repeats real quietly. He smiles sadly and shakes his head. “I gave up on that idea a long time ago, I’m afraid. There’s no saving the world. It’s useless. People will keep trying, just as I did, but … well, they’ll find out. Eventually, they’ll know.”

“What do you mean, Austin?”

He draws in a breath, and his whole body shudders. Maybe I shouldn’t be here. Maybe I’m just wearing him out. I’m about to say never mind, I should just go and let him rest when he says, “Last time I saw you in 1917, I was going to war. You remember?”

I nod and lift my hand to the necklace. “Sure I do.”

“Well, I went. And I saw things that”—he stops and looks me in the eye—“that I hope you’ll never see in your lifetime. Things too horrible to talk about. But afterward, I still thought there might be hope. It was the war to end all wars, after all. That was it. We could stop fighting now and live in peace. But then came the Second World War, and then Korea, and now Vietnam. You knew that the last time I saw you in 1917, didn’t you?”

I sniff out a laugh, even though I’m not trying to be disrespectful. “Yeah, I knew it. I mean, my own brother was over in ’Nam. I guess I never told you about that.”

He’s moving his head back and forth on the pillow now. “It doesn’t matter. It wouldn’t have mattered if you told me. It wasn’t war that made me realize how wrong my thinking was and how futile my hopes were.”

“It wasn’t?”

“No. It was my son.”

“Your son?”

“Lyle.” He swallows hard, and his eyes are all watery. “He’s a criminal and a murderer. He was perfecting the craft of getting into trouble when other kids were still learning how to ride two-wheelers. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get him to behave and play by the rules. Every day, I see the evidence of what he did to my daughter.” He lifts his hand to his forehead as if the scar is there instead of on Linda’s head. “Now he’s on death row. The law says he deserves to die. If I couldn’t change my own son and turn him into something good, what chance would I have with the whole world?”

We’re quiet for a minute. I shift my weight from one foot to the other. I’m afraid Austin might start crying, but he doesn’t. He’s looking out the window like he’s suddenly interested in the clouds swirling around and changing shapes up there in the sky.

“Austin,” I say, “when you get out of the hospital, I want to show you something.”