Showers in Season (6 page)

The lights were off in Barry’s office. He had come in today and tried to do his work, but it was difficult when he hadn’t slept all night. The doctor’s words yesterday had plagued him all night, and the wrenching despair in his heart rendered him unable to think or do anything except dwell on the inevitable. Stripes of brightness from the sun came in from the slats in the closed blinds, providing the only light in the room, for darkness had seemed more appropriate. He sat in the shadows, staring at the potted plant that his secretary kept watered, while his mind saw something else entirely.

He was ten years old, sitting on the stage of his elementary school, nervous about his first violin solo. It wasn’t much, just a few bars of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” but he never liked to do things poorly, and he wasn’t sure he had practiced enough. He remembered looking out into the audience from that dusty stage with its faded curtains and seeing his parents sitting on the back row with his brother Nathan propped up in his wheelchair
Nathan was whistling along with the strings after hearing the first chorus, and Barry remembered the sick, tight feeling that clawed at his stomach as the song ended.

But Nathan’s whistling didn’t.

Barry had fixed his eyes on his teacher, praying that she would quickly start them in the next song. He pretended he didn’t hear his brother’s loud, proud rendition of the song, shrilling out over the crowd. From the corner of his eye, he saw the heads beginning to turn, seeking out whatever rude soul was interrupting the silence between numbers. A few people chuckled, others shushed him, and he saw his teacher turn from the small orchestra and look to see who was whistling.

He decided right then and there that he would never play an instrument again, never give his parents cause to attend a concert and drag his brother with them.

Somehow, he had gotten through the song, but there was no longer joy in it, for he knew that the minute the song ended again, Nathan would be whistling it until someone distracted him with another tune. Guilt surged through him that he couldn’t just smile, brag that that was his brother, and admit how funny it was that he always whistled the last tune he heard. He shouldn’t be ashamed of the boy who had no choice in who he was or how he’d turned out. Barry should be happy that
he
was whole and healthy, that he could think and play violin, that he could sit up here with a solo and show his parents what it was like to have one child who could learn.

But he had been ashamed that day, the last day he’d ever played his violin.

Someone knocked on his office door, and he jumped and turned in his chair as they opened the door. Linda Holland from marketing stuck her head in. “Barry? I thought you weren’t in here. It’s dark.”

“I had a headache,” he said. “The light was hurting my eyes.”

She came tentatively into the room and set a report down on his desk. Her red hair looked as if she’d combed it in the car
that morning. Rumpled curls cascaded around her face, and he wondered if she’d taken the rollers out and left them on the seat while she drove. Her dress looked wrinkled as if she’d thrown it on in haste without ironing it, and she walked in stocking feet. He wondered where she’d left her shoes.

“I have some Tylenol if you want it,” she said, regarding him with concern.

“That’s all right. I’ll be fine.”

“Okay.” She kept looking at him as if he had a sign on his forehead that said his life was falling apart. “Here’s the report on the Hayes account.” She squinted in the darkness. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah.” He got up, rubbing his forehead, and looked at his watch. “I’m gonna take an early lunch. I’ll read the report when I get back.”

She preceded him out of the office. “If you decide you need that Tylenol…”

He nodded. “Thanks.” He stepped into the light, squinting, and didn’t meet her eyes. His secretary, in the cubicle not far from his office, looked up to see where he was going. He mouthed that he was going to lunch, and she frowned at the early hour. But he didn’t care. He had to get out of here.

He drove in silence across town, then got on the highway and followed it to the next little town, where his mother lived with his brother. His father had died over two years ago, and he felt a surge of guilt that he hadn’t done more to help his mother since that time. Her house needed painting and the porch steps were in need of repair.

He pulled into the driveway and saw that her car was home. He knocked on the kitchen door to warn her that he was coming, then pushed the door open and stepped inside.

“Barry!” she said, hurrying across the floor to greet him. “What are you doing here?”

He smiled and leaned down to kiss his mother’s cheek. “Hey, Mama. I was in the area and thought I’d stop in and fix a sandwich.”

“In the area?” she asked. “Way out here?”

When he evaded the question, she added, “We have ham and turkey slices and peanut butter and jelly.” Her face glowed at the sight of him. “Help yourself. I was just feeding Nathan.”

He looked through the door. “Where is he?”

“Out in the garden,” she said. “It’s a beautiful day, so I’m feeding him out there.”

He glanced out the window, saw Nathan, taller than he but so scrawny that he looked like his bones would break if he lifted an arm, propped in his wheelchair with his head held up by a brace at the back. He supposed his brother’s low weight was a blessing, enabling his strong mother to lift him. “Want me to feed him?” he asked.

“He’d like that,” his mother said, handing him the bowl and the spoon she held in her hand. “I’ll fix you a sandwich while you do.”

He took the bowl of mashed food and went outside to his brother. Nathan was whistling the theme song to “Wheel of Fortune,” and Barry knew he’d probably heard it playing on the television just inside the door. “Hey, Nathan,” he said as he pulled up a lawn chair next to the wheelchair and sat down.

Nathan gave no acknowledgment that he was there, just kept whistling and staring into the flowers.

“So let’s see what you got here today,” he said, looking into the bowl. “Ummm. Egg, banana, milk, cereal.” It was no surprise. Nathan had that for every meal, for as far back as Barry could remember. Everything else he spat out, making a mess that was unpleasant for even his mother to clean up.

He dipped out some of the food, spooned it into his brother’s mouth, and the whistling stopped. As he fed him, he tried to picture Tory in his mother’s place, with a thirty-five-year-old bigger than she was, who still needed his diapers changed and had to be fed. He tried to picture Spencer and Brittany feeding him, grown with children of their own, remembering back on their music recitals and the shame that they’d had to repent of time and time again.

He let his brother chew in the messy way he had, then wiped his face with the napkin tied like a bib around Nathan’s neck. Nathan sat quietly, waiting for the next bite, his eyes fixed on the green azalea bushes as if waiting for them to bloom. It would be months before they would, Barry thought, but Nathan would keep staring.

As he had a million times before, Barry looked into those vacant eyes and wondered if, somewhere behind them, there was a normal man in there, trapped and waiting to be freed. He pictured his brother in heaven, laughing eyes meeting his for the first time, his arm rearing back to throw a football across a meadow that he didn’t need a wheelchair to cross.

He took the wheelchair’s arm, unlocked one side, and turned Nathan’s chair until they were face-to-face. He leaned forward, nose to nose with his brother, staring into Nathan’s eyes as he’d done every day as a boy, trying to make their eyes connect just because Nathan had nowhere else to look. He tried to imagine that Nathan saw him, knew him, that there was a flicker or a hint of intelligence in his head. “You’re smarter and better looking than any of us, aren’t you, buddy?” Barry asked in a low voice. “Deep down in there, you’re really getting it all, aren’t you?”

Nathan began to whistle “Wheel of Fortune” again, and Barry leaned back. Nathan’s skin was tightly drawn over his face, but he had the same dark hair that Barry had, the same blue eyes, the same mouth. At first glance, no one would suspect the vacancy there. But upon closer scrutiny, one could see the dull stare in his eyes and the slack expression on his face. Barry wondered if the baby Tory was carrying would look like Nathan.

His eyes filled with tears. “If you’d had a choice to be here, would you?” he asked softly, wishing just once his brother would stop whistling and look into his eyes, and answer a simple yes or no. Once would be enough.

But he just kept whistling and staring through Barry’s head, looking at something just on the other side…something that wasn’t even there.

Barry remembered the bowl in his hand, and dipped out another spoonful. His mother came out with a plate that had a sandwich and a pickle, a pile of potato chips on the side. She stopped just over him and saw the red rims of his eyes. “Barry? What’s wrong?”

He looked up at her and smiled. “Nothing, Mama.” He got up and offered her his chair, and got another one that was folded up against the house.

“You look like something’s bothering you,” she said, sitting down but not taking her eyes from him. “Why did you really come by today?”

He sat down and let her trade his plate for Nathan’s bowl. “I don’t know. Just wanted to see you guys, I guess.”

“Everything all right at home?”

He thought of telling her about the pregnancy, the news that had rocked him almost to Kentucky and back, the sick, deep, drowning feeling that kept destroying any concentration he might have had. “Yes, ma’am. Just fine.”

She sighed and spooned Nathan another mouthful. “Nothing on your mind, then? Nothing at all?”

“No, ma’am.” He leaned back in his chair and took a bite of his sandwich without looking to see what she’d made. When he bit into it, he noted that it was ham. It felt tasteless and rubbery in his mouth. He hadn’t had an appetite since they’d left the doctor’s office yesterday. He set the sandwich down and watched his mother feed his brother, watched her wipe his chin. “Mama, do you ever get tired?”

“’Course I do.”

“Of taking care of Nathan, I mean.”

She shot him a look that was full of words. “He’s my son. Just like you. Who else would take care of him?”

“But do you get tired?” he asked again. It was suddenly very important for him to hear his mother say it straight out.

She looked down at the food in the bowl and stirred it up with the spoon. “I worry,” she said. “About what will happen to him if anything happens to me.” She shot him a look. “Is that
what this is about? Have you been thinking what would happen if I passed on?”

The thought had never occurred to him. “No, I just wondered. Most mothers have an end to it, somewhere down the road. Their kids grow up and move out and have kids of their own. They get to go on vacations and piddle around the house and spoil their grandchildren. Your job with Nathan never ends.”

She was quiet as she fed Nathan another spoonful, and Barry wondered for a moment if he’d offended her.

“I was just thinking about that,” he said quietly. “Realizing how much of your life you’ve given to Nathan.”

She smiled then and looked up at Barry with perfect peace in her eyes. “God chooses our path, honey. I’m just walkin’ mine. And it’s fine by me.”

His eyes filled with tears again, and he nodded, suddenly unable to take another bite. He was afraid his lips would start that twitching again, that his heart would push up in his chest and into his throat, that he wouldn’t be able to hide Tory’s pregnancy on his face anymore. Quickly, he looked at his watch and got up. “Oops. Got to get back to the office.”

“But you didn’t eat.”

“I’ll take it with me, Mama. Thank you for making it.”

She got to her feet. “I’m glad you came by, darlin’. I don’t see you enough. Give Spencer and Brittany a kiss for me. Tory, too.”

“I will.” He kissed her cheek, then patted Nathan’s knee, and darted back through the house. “Bye, Mama,” he yelled behind him before she could see his eyes reddening again.

He heard her say good-bye as he rushed back out to his car.

Brenda had never been so glad to see midnight come in her life. The noisy room was somehow lonely, full of people too busy to talk to each other, and the last few phone calls she’d had to make that evening had been excruciating. She had watched the hands on the clock constantly as she listened to people hanging up in her face, telling her they weren’t interested, or yelling at her for calling so late.

Because she hadn’t quite made her quota of sales for the night, the night supervisor had chewed her out and warned her that her pay would be docked if she didn’t do better the following night.

She had cried all the way home.

When she pulled into her driveway, she found a tissue and wiped her eyes so David wouldn’t know how upset she was. Last night, her first night on the job, she had come in with a huge smile and let him think that she’d loved it. Tonight, she feared she wouldn’t be able to pull that off.

When she got inside, she saw that David was waiting up—or trying to. He had fallen asleep in his chair with the television on. She smiled and went to him, pressed a kiss on his eyelids, and gently woke him.

He looked up at her.

“I’m home,” she said. “You didn’t have to wait up.”

“I missed you,” he said. He rubbed his eyes. “How was it?”

“Good,” she said. “Did the kids get to bed all right?”

“Yeah,” he said. “A little late. Leah and Rachel had homework in every subject. And Daniel had to finish his project. Oh, and Joseph had one of his mood swings. I went in his room and found him crying in bed.”

“Crying? What did he say?”

“He said he didn’t know what was wrong. And I don’t think he did. It’s the medicine, you know.”

“Yeah, it does that.” She dropped down on the couch, feeling weary to her bones. “But he’s healthy, David. A few mood swings are a small price to pay.”

“You said it,” David said. He got up and reached for her hand. “Come on, let’s go to bed. Morning’ll be here before you know it.”

She hung onto that promise as she crawled into bed next to him moments later. Morning would come. She was certain of it. She could endure a little darkness until it did.