Once Beyond a Time (20 page)

She asks, “Why do you suppose it’s happening?”

That seems to be the big question, doesn’t it? Sheldon asked me that very thing not long ago. As though I would have the answer! “I have no idea,” I confess, telling her what I told Sheldon. “Maybe there’s no reason for it. Maybe it’s just something that
is
, the way—well, the way the mountains are. They’re there, and we live among them.”

She looks thoughtful. She lets her head rest against the padded rocker and pushes herself with the ball of one foot. “I don’t know, Meg. I always think things happen for a reason.”

I take a deep breath and lift my shoulders in a shrug. “Maybe. But I certainly don’t know what that reason would be.”

“Perhaps you just don’t know
yet
. But maybe someday you’ll know.”

“Maybe.”

She stops rocking suddenly and gives me a puzzled smile. “For someone who’s experiencing something as—well, as
unusual
as seeing into other times, you certainly don’t seem overly
impressed.
”

I have to think about that. What exactly do I feel? “It’s kind of odd, Donna,” I admit. “I feel like I’m just, I don’t know, waiting for something. I simply feel as though I’m waiting and watching for something. I don’t know what.”

“Hmm.” She shakes her head. “I can’t imagine.”

She looks dreamily toward the empty hearth, and I follow her gaze to the kettle dangling there. She doesn’t see it, I know, because she’s lost in thought, but I can’t help wondering whether someone, in an earlier time, is using that kettle right now to boil water over a fire, to make herself a cup of tea. Perhaps that someone is tired and would simply like to rest awhile. Perhaps she is, as Celeste says of the mountain people, simply spending time.

In another moment, Donna turns back to me and says, “If it’s already made, I think I will have that cup of coffee.”

I pour us both a cup. We go on talking quietly, moving away from speculation about the house and on to other things, inconsequential things. We slip easily from one train of thought to another. The minutes pass. I enjoy listening to the refined lilting of her voice and to the children’s laughter that rises up occasionally in the yard. It is a time of isolated loveliness, full of serenity. I am almost happy to be here in this house in Black Mountain.

At length, the afternoon edges toward dinnertime, and Donna rises to go. She calls Marjorie in from play. The child is warm and flushed and happy. Several chains of clover circle her neck.

“You’re good at that,” I tell her, “making those clover necklaces.”

She beams. “Yeah, and I think Digger likes his. At least he didn’t take it off.”

He is still in the backyard, working hard to poke a stick into the ground so that it stands upright like a flagpole. He seems oblivious to the clover chain around his neck; he has probably forgotten it’s there.

At the front door, Donna kisses the air close to my cheek, calls me “Hon’” in that sweet southern way of hers, says she’ll come back soon for another visit. I smile. I did not know her before—not really anyway. I think she and I will become good friends now that I’m here.

I go to the kitchen and begin to prepare dinner: a hamburger casserole, fresh corn on the cob, a green salad, cherry cobbler. Sheldon will like that, especially the cobbler. I pause in my work and lift my head. Funny that I should think of Sheldon and what he might like, just as I used to do, once upon a time.

Well, never mind. Maybe old habits die hard.

Tonight, there will be only the three of us, with Linda over at Gail’s. Someday, all five of us will sit around the table again, when Carl comes home from ’Nam.

I put the casserole in the oven and turn to look out the window over the sink. The stick Digger had been diligently working into the earth is still upright, though tilting slightly toward the ground. Digger isn’t there.

I step out the back door and call his name. But he doesn’t answer. After a moment, I call again. There’s only silence. I’ve told him time and time again not to go into the woods. “Digger!” I holler. “Where are you?”

Perhaps he has simply gone around to the front yard. Maybe he wandered over there to play with his trucks in the driveway. And yet, if he’s in the yard anywhere, he should have heard me calling for him.

Suddenly, I’m frozen with fear. I’m certain something has happened to Digger, but I don’t know what. I—but I mustn’t panic. No, I can’t allow myself to panic. He must he nearby somewhere. He must be.

“Digger!”

Saturday, September 7, 1968

G
OOD GOSH ALMIGHTY
, what was I thinking? When Gail invited me to have supper at her house, I should have just said no right off the bat. I mean, I
wasn’t
thinking, that’s the problem. I didn’t think what it might be like to sit across the table from a dead man while we’re both trying to eat. Really, this trying to chew when you forgot to Polident your uppers … not a pretty sight. Gail never told me her grandfather wears dentures, but when he opens his mouth and his upper gums are all naked and pink because his top teeth are still down with his bottom teeth, it’s kind of obvious. He keeps pushing his upper plate back into place with his thumb. Gail and her mom pretend not to notice, but that’s probably because they’re used to it. Well, I’m not, and if I have to spend much more time watching that shriveled old goat pushing his spaghetti-coated teeth back into place, I’m pretty sure I’m going to barf.

“So you say you’ve joined the yearbook staff, right, Linda?” Gail’s mom looks at me and smiles. The huge scar on her forehead is about as appetizing as the old man’s false teeth, but at least it isn’t glossy with saliva and tomato paste.

“Yeah,” I say. “I’ve got to take an elective, so I figured that’d be better than most everything else they were offering.”

“And it doesn’t hurt that Rodney is the editor,” Gail adds.

“Oh yes,” Mrs. Leland says. “He’s a nice boy.”

“Nice?” Gail echoes. “Mom, he’s absolutely dreamy. Right, Linda?”

“Um, sure, he’s all right.” When I say that, I notice the old man’s watery eyes roll toward me.

“What I wouldn’t give to have a date with him,” Gail goes on. “Just one date and I’d be in hog heaven.”

Well, yeah, he’s not the best-looking boy I’ve ever seen—not near as good-looking as Austin—but what I wouldn’t give to have him sitting across the table from me right now instead of the old man. At least his teeth don’t fall out when he eats.

“So what are you going to do on the yearbook?” the old man asks.

Which means if I’m going to be polite, I’ve got to look at him when I answer. “Oh, I don’t know.” I shrug. “Take pictures, maybe.”

I drop my eyes to my plate and work on twirling some spaghetti on my fork, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to throw up any minute now.

“Well, I think you’ll have fun,” Mrs. Leland says. “And I’m glad you two girls have a couple of classes together. That makes it nice.”

“Yeah,” Gail says. “Linda and I can study for algebra and biology tests together. Won’t that be great, Linda?”

I nod and try to sound at least a little enthusiastic when I say, “Yeah, great.”

“Oh say, Gail,” Mrs. Leland says, “did I tell you Abner and his wife are celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary next weekend and we’re invited to the reception at the church? That’s what you told me, isn’t it, Dad?”

The old man nods. His thumb is in his mouth again so he can’t speak.

“No way!” Gail cries. “Fifty years? Really? Hey, Linda, maybe you’d like to come to the reception with us?”

I look at her like I can’t believe what she’s saying. I’d rather eat roadkill than go to the anniversary reception of one of the perverts. Yeah, I finally
remember the names of all the old men and even know which is which. Abner is the one whose stomach hangs down over his belt. Otis has the glass eye that doesn’t move. Luther is the one with the hairy knuckles and the nose that was permanently flattened when he drank too much and fell face down on the sidewalk. And Buford is the one missing the top half of his right ear. He claims a bear bit it off, but I don’t believe him. More likely his wife did it, and probably for no other reason than his name is Buford. Yeah, not one good strong name among them, just a bunch of hillbilly names.

And then there’s Bim. I don’t even know what his real name is and, on my life, I have no desire to know. It can’t be anything good, like Austin. But then, Austin’s from Chicago where people are normal and have some self-respect and don’t name their kids after comic strip characters.

Bim’s looking at me now like he’s waiting for me to say
of course I’ll go to the old folks’ anniversary party
. I’m thinking about being stuck in a church basement with a bunch of beat-up old geezers and their wives when the phone rings and Mrs. Leland excuses herself to walk across the kitchen to pick up the extension on the wall. After she says hello, I hear her say, “Oh yes, Mrs. Crane, she’s still here. In fact, we haven’t quite finished our supper yet, but that’s all right, I’ll put her on. Here she comes.”

I’m already standing up and making my way across the kitchen because I’m eager to get away from the old man’s eyes. I take the receiver from Mrs. Leland, who smiles her pleasant smile at me before she goes on back to the table.

“Yeah, Mom?” I say. “What’s up?”

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” she says, “but I want you to come home.”

My first feeling is relief, but then I realize there must be a reason she wants me home, so I ask her what it is.

“Digger’s missing,” she says, and she sounds like she’s about to cry.

I turn my back to the three people at the table who are now staring at me and say, “What do you mean, missing?”

“I mean, he was playing in the backyard, and now I can’t find him. I’ve already called your father. He and Uncle Steve are on the way here.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

“I want you to come home—”

“Well, you know, Mom, I’ve got to go to work tonight. And anyway, he’s probably just playing up in the woods, and he can’t hear you calling him. He’ll probably be home soon.”

“Maybe you’re right, but I don’t know.” Now I know for sure she’s crying because I hear her sniffing on the other end of the line.

“All right, Mom. Gail can tell Gloria I can’t make it in, and I’ll be home in just a few minutes.”

Even as I’m hanging up the phone, I’m placing my money on the bet that Digger will be home before I even make it out to the car. Dumb kid’s probably just collecting animal droppings in the woods and lost track of time. I’ll get home and find Mom yelling at him and blubbering all over him at the same time. Yeah, and for once he’ll probably be in big-time trouble with Mom and Dad both. The perfect little angel is not so perfect.

“Everything all right, Linda?” Mrs. Leland asks.

“Yeah.” I shrug. “But I gotta go. Digger’s wandered off, and I guess I got to go help find him.”

When I say that, the old man’s eyes get as big as his dinner plate, and I think they’re going to fall right out of his head. “You got to be careful in these mountains,” he says. “Maybe you ought to call the …”

But I don’t hear the rest of it because I’m already halfway down the front hall, thanking my lucky stars for giving me the perfect excuse to escape the old man’s flapping gums.

Saturday, September 7, 1968

“D
IGGER
!”

I pause to listen. No answer.

“Digger! Where are you, buddy?”

My voice breaks on the last word, but there’s no one around to hear. I’ve been scouring the woods for the last hour, going up the side of the mountain while Steve works his way down. He’s following the road from our house; I’m following a footpath that’s overgrown and barely visible. I must keep my bearings, or I’ll be lost too. Certainly, I must be back at the house before nightfall, and that’s only a short time away. But I can’t come off this mountain without my son.

“Digger! Where are you?”

My fear threatens to evolve into full-fledged panic. I can’t let it. I have to keep a level head.

Dear God, please help me find my son. Please keep him safe and bring him back to me.

I want to say the words out loud, but they dissolve like ashes in my mouth. If I say the words aloud, it means this is really happening, and Digger is really missing.

Listen! A rustling of leaves. I turn quickly, my heart pounding. Digger?

A squirrel scurries across the path. I watch it disappear into the underbrush. The world seems far too big for me; I’m not sure I can bear it.

Where in this wide world is my little boy? He has to be somewhere. People don’t just disappear. Maybe when I walk back down the mountain, I’ll find him at home. Maybe Steve has already found him and brought him back.

Digger, you know not to leave the yard. You know that. And you have so rarely disobeyed. On the little things, yes, but not on the big things—the life-threatening things. Why did you wander off this time? What would cause you to so blatantly disobey and wander off?

Oh dear God, Digger, please be home when I get there.