Episode IV

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False Promises

The interstate was long and parts of it under construction so they were made to take their time. John David in the Jeep up front with Edith following closely behind in her ten-year-old, apple green Prius. Like a watchful, down-to-earth shepherd keeping charge of a straggling sheep. 

Wouldn’t you rather just ride with me, she had asked him before they’d hit the road. They were sitting on a bench in a little city park where she and the chaplain had arranged to meet. He’d brought them bagels and cups of coffee but the food and drink sat untouched, still in the cardboard carrier perched on Edith’s knees. The strain of departure loomed heavy in the air. 

And be stranded there, not a chance, John David replied. He was watching down the paved path where the chaplain was talking on his phone next to a row of red tips. 

It’s home, Edith offered, not a prison. 

It’s not my home. 

Well, it used to be and it can be again, if only for a while. And also it’s my home, and Benji’s, too.

He looked at her and she left him like that a few heart beats, letting him wonder and hoping, perhaps, that it might nurture in him the tiniest inkling of thought that life had, at least in her case, gone on, despite its own struggles, and that by choosing to keep his distance and silence, he was making the decision to not care. 

Brian and I have separated, she said. 

When he offered no response, she sat there just looking at him. Is that it? she said finally. That’s your response? Nothing.

When he still didn’t respond she studied him another few seconds minute until eventually her silence and the weight of her gaze moved him enough to turn and look å† her. What do you want me to say? he said. I’m sorry.

Edith shook her head and shrugged and you could see her rage engines revving, even as her eyes began to mist over. Who even are you anymore? she asked. I mean would it hurt you to show even the slightest bit of interest in how I’m doing? Like how does a twenty-two year old with a five year old son live at home with her father and teach third-graders all day? Or any of the hundreds of things I need to get done everyday to keep the world from crashing down around me? No. Not just me. Everyone. All of us. Or how I get by on something like five hours of sleep every night, not to mention the possibility that I might be getting a divorce, and, yeah, oh by the way, the person I looked up to most of my life seems to have gone bat shit crazy. 

Sorry. I didn’t know. 

Yeah, right. You didn’t know and everyone’s sorry and whatever, okay, that’s all fine and dandy but—and you know this better than me—sorry doesn’t really do much to solve any problem.

The chaplain walked over and joined them and John David looked up at him and said, Just couldn’t resist, could you? 

Resist what? 

Digging that hole a bit deeper.

Don’t blame him, Edith interjected. This is not someone else’s doing. Blame the Army if you want to blame anyone, but not him. 

About that, the chaplain said, I was just on the phone there with your CO.

Speaking of problems, said John David.

He asked about your leave. He said you had gotten back to him on your decision?

John David didn’t respond.

What decision? Edith asked.

Nothing, John David told her. 

Edith looked at the chaplain. What decision? she tried with him.

John David stood. Can we just go now. I’d like to see my dog. 

By mid-afternoon, the mountains loomed in the distance, the shoulders and narrow ridgebacks shaped like hounds, shipwrecked and helpless beneath the crescent blue wave of sky, their snouts stacked one upon the other, breaching the horizon as if raised in a desperate last gasp for air, then pushed upward from land that grew lush and green, appearing as if untouched by man were it not for the grassy bald-like clearings, which dotted the slopes like scars, where gray-green boulders mottled with lichen laid like the toppled headstones of some ancient civilization brought to its knees during one final stand in the red clay soil. 

Edith pulled up alongside him in the next lane over and she smiled and waved and when he didn’t wave back she frowned and shook her head and pulled ahead. He let off the gas to give her some distance and followed the highway south out of Asheville and into the heart of the Southern Highlands. 

He thought of the map and of his many nights spent roaming the land by fingertip, without ceiling or framework that might lend the land some depth, some boundary, some viable, physical means of escape. And here he was now, cruising this broken white line on a blacktop bed of asphalt and feeling the urge to keep going and to set good reason aside and surrender himself to this, the most wanderlust of temptations: Leaving it all behind. As if that were all he needed, a road, some two-bit tramp of a four lane highway, leading him on with false promises so that he alone might ejaculate his reticence in the belly of those curvaceous mountains. All for what? To manage some vanishing act? There is more to disappearing than losing oneself in the arms of a bare-naked country. 

He tried letting his thoughts wander, nudging them toward the catalepsy of travel, only to have them jolted awake later by the ringing of the cell phone. He looked at it and let it ring a few more times before answering.

You still back there? his sister asked.

Back where? John David responded. 

She was out in the yard when he came down the drive and he could see her standing there just off the porch in the shadows of the two chestnut trees. She was holding a phone to her ear and pacing slowly back and forth and turned sideways to him. There was a light wind and the skirt she was wearing blew in the breeze as she walked about and he remembered how pretty he used to think she was when she heard the engine and stopped and looked over. She turned and waved. 

He parked next to his father’s small pickup which is where she met him. I thought you might have given me the slip, she said as he stepped out of the Jeep. He held the door open and looked over at the house. It looked the same as before. Same as ever. 

He looked at Edith. What’s next? 

Edith cocked her head and looked at him curiously. We go inside. 

He did not move and she smiled at him and took his hand and led him up to the porch. She held the door open and he stepped inside and stood sheepishly looking around at what he could see of the house. The stairs, the dining room, which now was some sort of office with a desk and worktable. Down the short hall he could just glimpse the kitchen where he partially saw the figure of his father in his usual spot at the table. The seat was pushed back from the table and his father was shoeless with his hands concealed in his lap. He was wearing a ball cap and the same brown, lightweight jacket he had always been known to wear and squatting on his knees in the chair beside him, his bare feet pressed against the spindles of the chair back as he leaned down to see under the table was Edith’s son, Benji.

Look who I found, Edith announced to the house and she closed the door with a thud that sent a shudder through John David’s spine and she gave him a kind, little shove to get on with it. 

John David moved down the hall to the kitchen where his father and the boy had both turned their heads to look. He spotted the little dog sitting up under the table and he squatted and said, Hey Rome, and the little dog looked over at him and he wagged its tail but then turned its attention back to to whatever was playing out beneath the table. 

Edith came up behind him and eyed the scene with suspicion. What are you two up to?

Nothing, the boy replied. His face opened into a broad smile. 

For some reason I’m not convinced. 

Edith dropped her keys on the counter and walked over and looked down and saw on the table a pair of paper cups and a plate of half eaten cake. She looked at her father. Daddy, she said, I thought we agreed we’d cut it after dinner.

I cut it, Mommy. All by myself. Romeo wanted a piece.

Well that’s very grown up, honey, but dogs do not eat cake. 

This one does, said the boy.

He’s not supposed to is the point. 

Edith shot her father an accusing look and swept the plate off the table and snatched the spoon from his hand and she turned to carry the dishes into the kitchen. She glanced at John David, who was standing still in the hall, on his face a look of confusion, disbelief, and dread and she motioned him with her chin, Well, go on. 

Frank stood from the table then and he picked up the two paper cups and started to follow Edith into the kitchen but she blocked his way. Un-unh, she said in a whisper and took the cups from his hand. You get over there and say hello.

They stood together on the back porch in the waning daylight watching the little dog roam the edge of the apple orchard. John David stealing glimpses beyond of a few of the pickers wrapping up their day. Empty pick sacks slung over their shoulders. Some balancing ladders on their shoulders also as they all made their way toward the barn. His father asked about the dog. They talked of the weather. John David told him of the drive. When after a long awkward pause, Frank asked, How long you plan on staying?

I don’t know. We didn’t really talk about it. Edie and I.

Seems like that’s yours to decide.

One would think so. 

Why do you say that?

It wasn’t really mine to come.

Neither spoke for a moment. She rented out the apartment, Frank told him. Over the garage. 

About time.

But did y’all talk about sleeping arrangements? 

I assume she has something in mind.

Inside the telephone rang and Frank turned toward the sound and then back again and he rested his hands on the porch rail and looked out into the darkening shadows along the wood line where the little dog stood tasting the air with its muzzle. It’s harvest season, he said.

I can see that. 

Plenty of work to be done,

I imagine so.

John David started to say something more when Edith opened the screen door. The phone, Daddy. It’s that snake, Wyatt Kent. 

Frank looked at her, something unsaid passing between them, and he stepped around her and started to head inside but then stopped to glance down at his booted feet. He looked over his shoulder at Edith. 

Just go, she said and turned her back on him. She looked at John David. How’s it going?

Great Who’s Wyatt Kent? 

Nobody. Just a dumb developer.

Developer of what? 

Let’s not talk about that now. How’s it going out here?

How’s what going? 

You and him.

John David looked away. Peachy.

Peachy as in okay, or peachy as in I told you so?

Why’s he talking with a developer?

Can we not—wait, did he say something to you?

No.

Then what did you talk about?

What do you think?

The harvest?

What else.

Did he ask you to stay and help?

Not in those words.

What words did he use then?

The usual. If this, then that. There’s work to be done.

The door creaked opened and Frank stepped back outside. He was wearing his hat. Everything okay? Edith asked.

I need to run into town.

Now?

Yeah.

You going to tell me why? 

Nope, he said and he marched down the steps and across the yard to his pickup. 

What’s going on? John David asked after he’d climbed into the cab of the truck.

You men just need a good shake, she replied. 

What does that mean?

Nothing. They watched as their father drove off and then she took John David by the arm and said, Come on. We need to put up Zoey for the night.

What’s Zoey?

Our pig. 

You’re raising pigs now?

Not pigs. Pig. Only one. And I’m starting to think everyone should have one. 

Edith slipped inside the house and got Benji and they set off with the little dog in tow down a pair of old tire tracks cutting through the pasture. There, amongst the terraced rows and clumps of white clover and foxtail, stood the bowed, bent-kneed and thick-waisted weald of the apple orchard. The sun had dipped behind the mountains to the west and there was still the breeze from earlier as they walked, Edith with her arm wrapped tightly around her brother’s and her shoulder pressed against his side to warm herself from the chill while Benji roamed up the path ahead of them with Romeo, and she talked about getting Zoey.

I found her at the animal pound, if you can believe that. She was apparently wandering around downtown and when no one claimed her, I decided we would. She’s part of our insect control program. 

That sounds like you just made it up. 

I know, but it works like this: pests lay their eggs in apples. The apples fall to the ground, where eventually the larvae hatch. Zoey eats the fallen apples, killing the larvae and presto, pest problem solved.

What of the ones that don’t fall? 

Okay, it’s not fool proof. But still. We saved her from the butcher. And she’s made for a great story for Benji to tell. We just need a half-dozen more of her. 

John David let go of her arm and he walked over to one of the many heavy wooden crates scattered about the orchard and reached in and picked out one of the fruits. He turned it over in his hand before dropping it back in the crate. Then he stood there stock-still just staring off down the row, at tree after tree, each laden with so much fruit that they’d taken on a new character, that of a bush more so than a tree, where even the uppermost branches spread and sagged in every direction by the weight of their occupation. 

Edith walked up and touched his arm. He flinched and she apologized for startling him. I know what you’re thinking, she said. 

That so? 

Yes. You’re thinking things aren’t any different here. Than before, I mean. That it’s the same old apple orchard. But it’s not. Everything’s changed, John David. Especially him.

He cast her a doubtful look.

I mean it. He has. I can’t expect you to see that, not yet, but he has. Daddy’s not the same person you remember. And he really wants this to work. You being here, I mean. He wants this to feel like home again.

Has a strange way of showing. 

But he does.

Doesn’t really matter. It’s not likely to happen.

But it’s could and that’s all I’m asking from you, is that you try. Just try. Give me a week, maybe two, and you’ll see what I mean. This isn’t the same place you remember. I know that might be difficult to accept, I really do. It was a tough time for all of us, and though his reasons don’t make—

Stop it, he interrupted. Stop trying so hard to convince me that being here’s a good thing.

But it is.

No. It’s a terrible idea. And impractical.

So now you want to be practical? Where was that when you were somehow dismantling a toilet?

He looked at her. She told you about that?

Yes. And also, she has a name. It’s Jin.

Jen?

No, not Jen. Jin. How do you not even know her name? She warned me you probably wouldn’t. Do you have any idea even of just how much she did for you?

John David looked out into the orchard. I owe her, I know. But him, this garden, I owe nothing, not a damn thing.

I know you feel that way and I can understand why, but maybe, John David, maybe now you, more than anyone, can understand why he did what he did.

You mean by abandoning us? 

I don’t think of what he did like that, but whatever. I mean by taking care of himself.

Instead of us.

We were fine, we had—

No, John David shot back. That’s not fucking true. We needed him and he wasn’t there. Period. He made that choice, not me, not you. He chose it. End of story.

Edith watched him and she put her arm on his own. I know that, she said calmly. I’m just suggesting that maybe it wasn’t us he was abandoning. Maybe it was something else he was leaving behind. Now, after everything. Deep down, you must understand of that.

He shot her a warning glare and brushed her arm aside. Don’t, he warned. Just don’t. Don’t act like my eyes have been suddenly opened or something. Don’t act like something good will come of this. It won’t, not one fucking thing. And if you keep pushing this… I don’t even know what to fucking call it. This intervention? This, whatever it is you’re up to, I swear I’ll leave here in the blink of an eye and you will never see me again.

They found Zoey and after a few moments spent talking Benji out of riding her, they walked her back to the barn. The three then returned to the house and were stopped in the yard watching him kick a soccer ball around when there came the sound of an engine approaching. Edith muttered something about dinner and she turned to John David and said, Stall him and she called the little boy over and the two hurried inside. 

John David climbed the porch and he was standing there in the shadows as the truck slowly came down the drive. His father looked old, grouchy and frail behind the steering wheel, one arm cocked on the open window. He pulled up and parked beside the Jeep and tilted his cap back on his head. He sat there few seconds not moving, then he drew his hand over his forehead and wiped at the corners of his mouth. He settled the cap back low over his eyes and opened the door and stepped out and leaned back into the truck and came out with a brown paper sack and he walked up to the house. He stopped when he saw John David on the porch.

Need a hand with that? asked John David. 

Just a few things I picked up for dinner. Some baked beans and beef patties.

Edie’s inside now just getting started on that. 

I figured she’d gotten waylaid. It’s why I stopped.

John David looked out to the yard and beyond. Darkness filling in the last light, blanketing the mountainside. They were showing me to Zoey, he said. 

They put her up for the night?

Yeah.

The boy ride her?

He wanted to, but she wouldn’t let him. Said he needed a saddle. 

His father kind of chuckled. I wondered where he was getting that idea.  

Both of them fell quiet and then Frank gave a quick nod of his head and he said, I best be getting these inside before she gets too far along into whatever she thinks she’s making.

John David gave him room to pass and his father paused at the door, his hand on the handle and he stood there like that a few heartbeats, as if a thought had occurred to him, and then he opened the door and went inside and the screen door slammed shut behind him.

The three adults sat around the table picking at their plates and saying very little to one another. The boy was not eating much either and what talk there was was mostly his mother nagging him. 

But I’m full, the boy complained.

You need to eat. You’re five now and five-year-olds and above eat their dinners.

You’re not eating yours.

I am, too. See? Edith took up a spoonful of baked beans and shoved them in her mouth. 

The boy was not impressed. Besides, he added, I thought we were having tacos.

Edith put down her fork and looked at the boy and then looked smugly at her father. This is why I wanted to wait to cut the cake. 

Frank reached across with his own spoon and scooped some beans off the boy’s plate. You don’t know what you’re missing, he told him.

Tomorrow can we have tacos? asked Benji of his mother.

That’s up to your dad.

The boy’s head and shoulders sagged.

Just ask, Edith told him. He’ll probably make them for you. Or maybe he’ll take you out somewhere. 

For pizza?

Who knows. You’ll just have to ask. 

John David watched the boy, who appeared only slightly and temporarily intrigued by his mother’s suggestion. Wait a minute, he said. Is this your birthday?

Benji looked at him, then down at his plate and he nodded his head slowly, as if it were some admission of guilt.

John David looked at his sister. He stood up from the table and said, Well, now it all makes sense. The cake, the special meal request. Hell, Bruce! I’ll be right back.

Where are you going? Edith said to her brother’s back as he disappeared into the front hall.

Who’s Bruce, Benji asked.

I’m sure he’s just kidding, Edith answered. 

John David stepped outside and walked down the path to the Jeep. He opened the tailgate and began digging through the things he kept back there, already silently cursing himself for opening his mouth as he knew even then he would come up short for something to give the boy. He had just opened his duffle when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. A figure  coming around the corner of the garage. He stopped what he was doing and watched as a woman, tall, dark and lean, dressed in yoga attire passed in front of the Jeep. When she noticed him standing there in the glow of the Jeep’s dome light she ducked her head to see through the windshield and smiled then and came over. 

Hello. You must be John David. I’m Clara. She stuck out her hand and he shook it. I’m renting the flat over the garage. Her hand felt light and soft in his own and she had an air about her, an inner strength. In the other hand she was holding a gift-wrapped box. For the birthday boy, she explained. 

He motioned toward the Jeep. I was just getting something myself, he said.

Clara gave a slight nod and took a tiny step backwards indicating for him to continue and so he turned back to the interior of the Jeep and the matter of finding something appropriate to give a five year old boy. All he could produce however with his blind rummaging were a couple of wrinkled tee shirts, some loose socks, a pair of Army green underwear and the bottom half of set of fatigues. Lastly, he took out a large knife in a sheath and he turned and held it up to the light and looked hopelessly at Clara. 

Maybe next year, she said with a grimace.

John David put the knife away and he stepped back and threw his hands in the air. I’ve got nothing, he said. 

Clara held up the gift in her hands and replied, Then it’s a good thing you ran into me. This can be from the both of us.

Thank you, but I might find something yet. Who knows, maybe there’s a hand grenade in the glove box.

Clara laughed. From the looks of things, you might need it.

He looked at her. What do you mean?

She didn’t answer right away and stood watching him, the whites of her eyes growing dimmer as slowly the smile slipped from her face. I don’t know why I said that.  didn’t mean anything. You know us and our British humor. She motioned him toward the front door of the house. Shall we?

What exactly has she told you about me?

Who?

My sister.

Not anything. Other than that you might be coming.

John David turned back to the disorder that were his life’s belongings. 

Anyway, Clara said, looking over her shoulder at the house. My offer still stands. Or you could just take your chances with the knife. 

Inside the house, the boy had been waiting for him at the door and when he saw Clara he stepped back and looked at her. Hello there, birthday boy, Clara said to him. This is from your uncle and me, she said. She handed him the box just as John David appeared empty-handed in the doorway behind her.

Benji took the box and he sat down on the floor with it and started to shred it of its wrapping.

Benji, his mother scolded as she came into the foyer. It’s not a race.

They watched as the boy opened the gift, which was a set of plastic blue buckets, little feet sized, called Steppers.

You can walk on them, Clara said. I used to have something just like it when I was your age. Back then they were called then Romper Stompers and made from tin cans. 

She helped the boy take them out of the box and remove the packaging and then she affixed them one at a time to his feet. She took both of his hands and stood and pulled him up next. Now hold this cord, she said, passing him the braided line. All you do is walk around without falling down.

They watched then as the boy giggled and clomped circles around the hallway until he stomped off toward the kitchen to show his grandfather. Edith looked at Clara and thanked her for the gift. 

Totally my pleasure.

I see you’ve met John David.

Yes, I did, Clara replied and tossed him a glance.

Edith turned to her brother. What was it you went after? 

Nothing, he said. I thought maybe I might’ve had something. 

You know that’s not important.

John David shrugged. Still.

There is one thing, if you’re serious though. Edith glanced down the hall for the boy, who was nowhere in sight. Clara already knows this, she said, but Benji’s dad was going to surprise him by taking him down to her studio tomorrow for the kid’s yoga class. But of course he’s having to back out and so I was thinking you could take him.

Yoga? said John David.

Edith looked at Clara. That’s okay, isn’t it? If John David brings him.

It’s a marvelous idea. 

So? Edith turned to her brother, who gave her off the impression of giving the idea half a thought. But Edith knew otherwise. Oh, come on, John David. Please. 

When is it?

Nine o’clock, Clara answered.

Edith clasped her hands together over her heart, begging. He’d love you for it. Really, he would.

Has he been before?

No.

Then how do you know he’ll love it?

Benji came suddenly skipping into the room and asked for a piece of cake and Edith turned and told him to go sit at the table and he did as she said, swinging his arms as he headed back the way he’d just come from. She looked at her brother. Trust me, she said, he’ll love it.

Fine, he replied smugly.

So you’ll take him?

Sure.

Edith clapped her hands and looked at Clara and asked could she stay for some cake, to which Clara responded, I’d love to, but I’m afraid I’ve several things still to do tonight and an early start tomorrow. Thank you though.

They walked her as far as the porch and said their good-byes and after she was gone Edith looked at her brother and smiled broadly. 

What? he asked.

Nothing, she said and she slipped her arm around his waist and leaned into him. I’m just happy to have you home.