Ordinary Grace

23

Knowing was far worse than not knowing.

Not knowing had offered hope. Hope that there was some possibility we’d overlooked. That a miracle might yet occur. That one day the telephone would ring and there would be Ariel’s voice on the other end like a bird singing at sunrise.

Knowing offered only death. The death of Ariel and of hope and of something that I didn’t see at first but whose loss would reveal itself to me more and more as time went on.

New Bremen was in Sioux County and like many basically rural counties had an elected coroner whose duty it was to certify cause of death. The coroner for our county was van der Waal, the mortician. This wasn’t a piece of information most kids my age would typically have known but because my father’s occupation often drew him to the deathbed I’d heard him on many occasions recount to my mother van der Waal’s pronouncements. In that summer with Bobby Cole and the itinerant already in the ground van der Waal was even more darkly familiar to me.

He was tall with gray hair and a gray mustache that he often smoothed unconsciously as he talked. He spoke slowly and with great consideration in the words he chose and despite what I believed to be the gruesome nature of his occupation I thought of him as a kind man.

I wasn’t allowed to be at the river when the sheriff’s people retrieved Ariel’s body for transport to van der Waal’s Funeral Home. My father was there and to this day he has never spoken of that experience. For my part I imagined it a hundred times that summer. It haunted me. Not Ariel’s death itself which was still a mystery but her rising from the river in the hands of my father and the other men and her repose as I envisioned it on the clean soft bed of a satin-lined coffin at van der Waal’s. I didn’t know then in the way I do now the details of death in a river, of a body submerged for three days, of the desecration of the flesh that occurs during an autopsy, and I will not tell you these things. I imagined Ariel as I’d last seen her, beautiful in her red dress with her long auburn hair brushed silky and held back with the mother-of-pearl barrette and about her throat a gold necklace with a heart-shaped locket and on her wrist a gold watch and in her eyes a tearful sheen of happiness as she accepted the applause for her music that Fourth of July night at Luther Park.

When Jake asked me what I’d observed in the murky water beneath the trestle but wouldn’t let him see I described to him Ariel with her hair flowing and her dress aflutter as if she was simply standing in a strong summer breeze and he seemed satisfied with that and relieved. I have never asked him if now he understands the distasteful truth of what must surely have been the state of her body and I have tried my best not to imagine it myself.

An awful hush settled over our house. My mother became nearly mute and more often than not the only sound from her was weeping. She kept the curtains drawn so that it felt as if permanent night had fallen. Never much concerned anyway with her mundane domestic duties she completely stopped cooking and cleaning and sat for hours in the quiet dark of the living room. She was flesh without spirit, eyes without sight. It felt as if I’d lost not only my sister but my mother as well.

My grandfather and Liz came and stayed for the better part of every day. Liz took responsibility for the kitchen and for the phone which rang often with calls of condolence and she greeted those who came in person to offer the comfort of a few words and a prepared casserole and our kitchen became a wondrous buffet of midwest hot dish. Emil Brandt continued to be my mother’s constant companion but even his presence was insufficient to lift her from the dismal place into which she’d fallen.

From the moment he looked down beside me where I stood on the trestle and saw what I saw, my father became a man I didn’t recognize. He had turned to me and said, “Come along, Frank,” as if what we’d seen was nothing more than an unpleasantness or a discourtesy best ignored. He didn’t speak to me the entire way home and once there guided me up to my room and from the telephone in the hallway called the sheriff. When he came to me afterward where I sat on my bed he said, “Not a word to your mother, Frank. Not a word until we’re sure.” His face was pale and stiff as if sculpted of beeswax and I knew he was just as sure as I was of what we’d seen. He left me and I heard him go downstairs and speak with my grandfather and then I heard the screen door open and close and I went to the window and although my heart had already broken for Ariel it seemed to break again as I watched him walk alone back to the trestle.

In the days afterward Jake grew sullen and kept mostly to our bedroom. Ariel’s death devastated me and I broke into tears at odd moments but anger was Jake’s response. He lay on his bed and brooded and if I tried to talk to him he was liable to snap at me. He cried too but they were hot tears and he wiped at them with his fists and flung them away. His anger spilled out at everyone and everything but it seemed especially directed at God. Prayers at night had been a routine all our lives yet after Ariel’s death Jake refused to pray. Nor would he bow his head for grace before meals. My father didn’t make a point of it. He had so much on his shoulders already I suppose that he simply decided to let Jake and God work out the trouble between them. But I tried to talk sense into my brother one night upstairs in our room. He told me just to l-l-l-leave him alone. I’d had enough of him at that point and I said, “The hell with you. Why are you so mad at me? I didn’t k-k-k-kill Ariel.” He looked up at me from the bed where he lay and said with what sounded like threat in his voice, “Somebody did.”

Which was a possibility I’d chosen to reject entirely. In my thinking, Ariel had simply had too much to drink at the party and had stumbled into the river and drowned. She was a terrible swimmer. Her death was horrible beyond belief but it was an accident and accidents happened all the time even to the best of people. Or so I told myself. Looking back now, it’s easy to see what I was really afraid of. Which was that if Ariel’s death wasn’t accidental, then I had let the man most probably responsible for it get away and, oh Christ, I didn’t think I could live with that.

So even after Jake threw the possibility at me I continued to blind myself to it. Until Gus and Doyle opened my eyes.

Gus was a constant but quiet presence through much of the aftermath of Ariel’s death. When he entered the house he never ventured into the living room which had become like a cave where my mother brooded. He kept his presence to the kitchen where he talked with my father and ate the food which Liz dished from the contributions that poured in from friends and neighbors and members of my father’s congregations. I had the sense that he served as messenger and confidant and runner of errands in order to lessen my father’s burden.

Late Saturday afternoon, Gus caught me alone in the front yard with a stick in my hand making life miserable for a colony of ants. He stood beside me and watched the rage I’d incited among the insects as a result of breaking open the little anthill they’d carefully constructed. “How’re you doing, Frank?” he asked.

I watched the ants going berserk for a while before I answered, “Okay, I guess.”

“Haven’t seen you out much.”

“Too hot,” I said. Though the truth was that I didn’t feel like seeing anybody or being seen. I missed Ariel so much, felt so empty and hurting that I was afraid I might break down and cry at any moment and I didn’t want anyone seeing me if that happened.

“Bet a tall root beer in a frosted mug would cool you off. What do you say we head up to Halderson’s Drugstore on my motorcycle?”

A ride on Gus’s Indian Chief was always a treat and I was tired of the house and the darkness inside and Jake’s sullenness and the unsettling strangeness of everything that had been so preciously familiar and I said, “Sure.”

“Think Jake might want to go?”

I shook my head. “He just wants to be upstairs and be mad.”

“All right if I ask him?”

I gave a shrug and went back to poking at the ant colony.

Gus returned a few minutes later without Jake. I was sure my brother had told him to get l-l-l-lost but Gus reported that Jake had just said he’d rather be alone right now. Gus lightly punched my arm and said, “Come on, Frankie. Let’s ride.”

We didn’t go straight to Halderson’s. Gus took us out of town and over back roads. We flew between fields of corn that stood as high as my waist and that stretched away to the horizon on all sides with hot silver sunlight pouring over their leaves so that they glistened like the endless water of a green sea. And we dipped into the cool shade of hollows where creeks ran beneath leafy canopies of cottonwood and hackberry and birch. We climbed to the top of the ridge that marked the southern boundary of the river valley and below us spread a land full of the promise of a good fall harvest and cut by a river that I understood was the reason for the rich life there. And although I’d been angry at the river for Ariel’s death I understood the river was not to blame.

All the while I sat in the little sidecar and let the wind and the sun and the beauty of the land wash over me. I felt cleaner and better than I had since Ariel first went missing. I didn’t want to go back. I wanted to stay with that big motorcycle and leave New Bremen behind forever. But eventually Gus guided us into town and pulled the Indian Chief up before Halderson’s Drugstore and killed the engine and I hopped out of the sidecar and we went inside.

Cordelia Lundgren was behind the counter of the soda fountain. I knew her slightly. One of Ariel’s friends. She was heavy and suffered from a bad complexion and when she saw me her face took on a look of panic as if she had no idea what to say to me. So she said nothing at all.

“A couple of root beers,” Gus said as we sat down on the stools. “And make sure those mugs are good and frosty.”

Halderson came from behind the pharmacy window and leaned against the counter. “Those root beers are on the house,” he told Cordelia. He looked at me and said, “Frank, I’m sorry about your sister. It’s a crying shame.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said and waited for my root beer.

“Any more word, Gus?”

“No,” Gus said, and out of the corner of my eye I saw him gesture to Halderson in a way that was meant to cut off any further questioning.

“Well, I just wanted to say how sorry I am.”

I studied the miscellaneous items lined up along the preparation area of the soda fountain-cherry and lime syrups for phosphates, chocolate and butterscotch and strawberry for sundaes, chopped nuts and bananas and whipped cream-and without looking at Halderson I said, “Yes, sir. Thank you.”

“Anything you or your family need just let me know.”

“I will, sir.”

It was an awkward dance, with death calling the tune, and in a way I felt sorry for Halderson who was simply trying to be kind. I was relieved when Cordelia brought the root beers and Halderson returned to his pharmacy window.

Ten minutes later Doyle walked in. He was in uniform and he came straight to Gus and me.

“Saw your motorcycle out front,” he said.

“Yeah, Frankie and me, we just had ourselves a great ride in the country.”

“I’m really sorry about your sister, Frank. I promise you we’ll get the bastard who killed her.”

“What do you mean? I thought she drowned in the river.” It was Halderson who said this. When Doyle walked in the pharmacist had come out again from behind his window.

“According to the coroner’s preliminary report, there’s more to it than that,” Doyle said. He eased himself onto the stool next to Gus.

“Not now,” Gus said and gave a nod in my direction.

“I want to know,” I said.

“I don’t think so,” Gus replied.

Doyle said, “The boy has a right to know seems to me.”

“That’s not for you to say,” Gus responded.

“Hell, he’ll know sooner or later.”

“Tell me,” I said.

Doyle ignored the stern look from Gus. “The coroner says your sister drowned but it wasn’t the river that killed her. He believes she was hit on the head and probably knocked unconscious and thrown in. He wants some hotshot medical examiner from Mankato to come out and do a full autopsy.”

Oh, God, please no, I thought.

“Do they have any idea who might have done it?” the pharmacist asked.

“Pretty sure it was the Indian,” Doyle said. “Redstone. He had her necklace.”

A tidal wave of guilt swept me up and spun me around and dizzied me. Oh God oh God oh God, I thought. I let him get away.

And then because I couldn’t bear the guilt I grabbed at the fading sense I’d had of Redstone that he was different from the way everyone else seemed to see him. I said almost breathlessly, “He told me he found the locket.”

“And you believed him? An Indian?” Doyle looked at me like I was an idiot.

His interest was a policeman’s interest. He was concerned with facts. How could he understand my own sense of Warren Redstone? Still I stumbled desperately on. I said, “Why would he want to hurt Ariel? He didn’t even know her.”

“I’m betting the autopsy’ll tell us why,” Doyle said enigmatically and I saw him shoot a knowing look at Gus.

“He didn’t do it,” I insisted childishly, illogically.

Maybe to save me from appearing any stupider or maybe simply to distract me from thinking too much about Doyle’s veiled reference to what the autopsy might reveal, Gus said to his friend, “What if it wasn’t the Indian?”

Doyle shrugged. “My next choice would be Engdahl.”

Which was an enormous relief to me and I jumped on the possibility. “That girl he was with, she’s a skag,” I said. “I bet everything she said about that night was a lie.”

“A skag?” Doyle seemed to find that amusing. He grinned briefly and said, “When the sheriff finds them, I’ll make sure he knows that, Frankie.”

“Finds them?” Halderson said.

“He’s looking for them now,” Doyle told us. “Both kids just up and disappeared, Engdahl and his girlfriend.”

“That doesn’t necessarily prove anything,” Halderson pointed out.

“Maybe not but it sure doesn’t look good.” Doyle eyed me. “Your father probably knows all this. The way I understand it the sheriff’s been talking to him all along. Hell, Gus probably already knew, too.”

I looked at Gus and could tell from his face that he did indeed know.

I slid off the stool and left the drugstore. Gus came out behind me.

“Wait, Frank.”

“I’ll walk home,” I told him over my shoulder and kept going.

He fell in step beside me on the sidewalk. “What did you want me to do, Frank? Your father asked me not to say anything.”

“He could’ve told me.”

“He doesn’t want you hurting any more than you already are.”

We were passing the barbershop and through the open door came Herb Carneal’s voice on the radio calling a Twins game. “We’d all know sooner or later,” I said.

“Maybe later is better, Frank. You’ve already had your share of bad news.”

I didn’t agree with Gus. As bad as the knowledge might be I wanted the truth. And I was angry with my father for keeping it from me.

“He should have told me,” I said.

Gus stopped and because he did I did. I turned back and found him standing on my shadow on the concrete and looking at me sternly. He said, “You think your mother is ready to hear these things? Jesus, Frankie, use your head. Your old man is shouldering so much right now you really need to give him a break. Sure it hurts you. Think he’s not hurting? Christ,” Gus said with final disgust. “You want to walk home, go right ahead.”

He turned back toward his motorcycle and I turned toward home. I shoved my hands into my pockets and in the long slant of the late afternoon sun I walked down Main Street which should have been familiar to me but didn’t feel so. I came to Cedar Street down which every weekday from September to June, Jake and I walked to school. And here was the intersection with Ash where the Guttenburgs’ house stood and where Jake and Danny O’Keefe and I had built a great snow fortress last winter with Skip Guttenburg and had battled the Bradley brothers across the street. And here was

Sandstone Street and a block north was the parking lot of Rosie’s where Jake and I had smashed the lights of Morris Engdahl’s Deuce Coupe. These streets and their memories seemed to belong to a different time and even to a different person. I felt as if Ariel’s death had shoved me through a doorway into a world where I was a stranger. I wished that Gus had never brought me back from the country roads and I couldn’t remember ever feeling so lost or so alone.

I heard the sound of the Indian Chief long before Gus pulled up beside me.

“Hop in,” he said above the rumble of the engine and nodded toward the sidecar. “I’ll take you home.”

I didn’t argue.

That night after Emil Brandt and my grandfather and Liz had all left and Jake was sleeping, I lay awake listening to the sound of the wind in the trees outside my window. It was a fierce wind and I heard anger in the way it shook the leaves and bent the branches. I thought that a storm might sweep in behind it but I heard no thunder and when I got up and went to the window and looked outside I found to my surprise that the sky was clear and full of stars and the moon was about to rise.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Warren Redstone. The weight of my guilt over letting him go was crushing me. I tried to pray but had no idea what to say except that I was sorrier than I’d been about anything ever. I kept seeing the sweep of Ariel’s hair in the river current and the flutter of her red dress and, on the trestle above, Redstone sneaking away. I balled my fists and pressed them into my eye sockets as if to push those images out of my head.

The light was on in the hallway and I heard the heavy restless tread of my father descending the stairs. I left my room and saw that although it was late my parents’ bed was empty. I went to the landing. I couldn’t see much of the living room below but I could tell that it was dimly lit with the glow of a single lamp. I heard my father speak.

“Would you like some company?”

He received no response.

“I should probably close the windows, Ruth. It feels like a storm.”

“I like them this way.”

“Would you mind if I sat here with you and read?”

“Do whatever you like.”

Things were quiet. Then my mother said, “The Bible?”

“I find comfort in it.”

“I don’t.”

“I won’t read aloud.”

“If you must read that book read it somewhere else.”

“Is it God you’re angry with, Ruth?”

“Don’t use that tone with me.”

“What tone?”

“Like I’m one of your flock. Lost. I don’t need your help, Nathan. Not the kind of help you’re going to offer from that book.”

“What kind of help would you like?”

“I don’t know, Nathan. But not that.”

“All right. I’ll just sit then.”

A few moments of tense silence followed, then my mother said, “I’m going to bed.” She said it in a way that made me think she was irritated with my father, with his presence, though what he’d done to make her angry I didn’t know. I heard the floorboards yield under her weight and I went quickly to my bedroom and lay down with the door open. She came up the stairs and went into the bathroom and I heard water run in the sink and heard her brush her teeth and gargle briefly. She crossed the hallway and entered her bedroom and closed the door. My father didn’t follow her upstairs.

I lay for a long time listening to the wind grab the trees and shake them. I was still wide awake when I heard the front door open and close. I swung my feet off the bed and hurried to the window and saw my father cross the street to the church. He went into the sanctuary and was lost to me in the darkness there.

In my pajamas and barefoot I went downstairs and out the front door and followed where my father had gone. The night was warm and the wind against my face felt fevered. I climbed the steps to the church and saw that the door had not shut completely and the wind had pried it open just enough for me to slip inside without a sound. My eyes had already adjusted to the night and in the dark of the sanctuary which was far from total I saw the black shape of my father at the altar. His back was to me. He struck a match and put the flame to the wicks of the candles that flanked the altar cross on either side. He blew out the match and knelt before the altar and bent himself so low that his forehead touched the floor. He stayed that way a long time and was so silent I thought maybe he’d fainted.

“Captain?”

Gus stepped in from the doorway that led to the basement stairs. My father rocked back and came upright. “What is it, Gus?”

“Nothing. Heard someone up here, thought it might be you. Thought maybe you’d like some company. Was I wrong?”

“No, Gus. Come in.”

I sank quickly to the floor and made myself small in the shadows near the front door. My father put his back against the altar and Gus joined him and leaned back too in a way that seemed familiar and relaxed.

My father said, “I did come looking for company, Gus. I hoped God might have something to say to me.”

“Like what, Captain?”

My father was quiet and because the candles were on the altar behind him his face was in shadow and lost to me. Finally he said, “I’ve been asking the same questions of him over and over. Why Ariel? Why not me? The sins are mine. Why punish her? Or Ruth? This is killing her, Gus. And the boys, they don’t understand, they just hurt. And it’s my fault. All my fault.”

Gus said, “You think God operates that way, Captain? Hell, that sure ain’t what you’ve been telling me all these years. And as for those sins of yours, I’m guessing you mean the war, and haven’t you always told me that you and me and the others we could be forgiven? You told me you believed it as surely as you believed the sun would rise every morning. And I’ve got to tell you, Captain, you seemed so certain that you got me believing it too.” Gus sat forward and looked at his hands which were wax-pale in the candlelight. “I can’t see any way that the God you’ve talked yourself blue to me and everyone else about would be responsible for what happened to Ariel. I can’t believe God would hurt that beautiful child in order to call you to account. No, sir, I don’t believe that for one moment.”

This seemed odd to me coming from Gus because mostly what I’d always heard from him was a questioning of everything my father spoke for.

“Seems to me you’re just kind of reeling here, Captain. Like from a punch in the face. When you come around you’ll see that you’ve been right all along. I know I give you a hard time about your religion but damned if I’m not grateful at heart that you believe it. Somebody’s got to. For all the rest of us, Captain, somebody’s got to.”

Gus stopped talking and I became aware of an odd and disconcerting sound that was growing louder in the sanctuary. I didn’t understand at first what it was or its source, and then I realized that it was my father crying. Huge sobs erupted from him and boomed off the walls. He bent and wept into his hands and Gus leaned to him and held my father dearly.

And as quietly as I could I crept outside into the night and the wind.