Читать книгу The Light in the Mirror - David I. Lane - Страница 6

2

Recalling the Dead

That evening, the two men sat down to dinner in their little dining room. It was Mac’s turn to cook, and he had selected a menu of tossed green salad, and spaghetti with meatballs. Complimenting his own culinary skill, Mac said, “It’s a really tasty salad, so it is.”

“Yes, Uncle, it’s very good.” Richard’s mind, however, was not on the food. While he was eating salad, something was eating him. He was waiting for the right time to bring up a subject that he’d been thinking about for some time. Finally, when Mac served the dessert of fresh-baked scones, Richard summoned the courage to say, “Uncle Mac, I’ve wanted to ask you something for a long time.”

“Yes, Richard?” Mac answered between bites. Richard’s manner indicated the lad had something serious on his mind. Mac stopped eating, and lowered his fork.

After a slight pause, Richard replied, “All the years I’ve known you Uncle . . . you’ve never said much about my parents or my brother and sister.”

Mac looked uneasy for a moment in response to Richard’s interest, then let out a sigh and appeared to relax.

“I know they died in a car accident,” Richard continued, “but you never told me how it happened. I wish you’d tell me more about my mother and father and my sister and brother—I mean . . . the kind of people they were. And I thought . . . that uh, well, you could . . .”

“Aye, my boy,” interrupted Mac sympathetically. “I understand. It’s natural that ye should want to hear aboot your mither and father—how they lived and died. I suppose I should have told ye sooner. It’s a wee bit hard to talk about, so I’ve been puttin’ it off,” Mac explained.

Richard nodded. He looked intently at his uncle, his keen interest obvious.

“Your mom was a virtuous woman. She was always lookin’ for ways to see ithers awright.”

“You mean, my mother was always ready to help others get what they needed?”

“My very words, Richard. Some women collect teapots, dolls, or jewelry. Your mom collected people in trouble. She was truly one o’ God’s helpers. Your mom was a gude Christian—I think I told ye that.”

Richard nodded.

“God rest her soul, your mom had wisdom and wit beyond her years. Mary’s way with words was all her own. One time she said, ‘God gave us children so we adults would grow up.’ Once newlyweds asked her why married couples had so many fights. She replied, ‘It’s not so many fights if ye don’t keep count.’”

Richard chuckled at his mother’s wit and wisdom.

“Mary dinna have a college education like ye have Richard, but she was always a reader. It made her thoughtful. I remember she told me once, ‘When we leave God out o’ our plans, we plan only for today. But with God in mind, we see beyond today.’ I’ve tried to keep that in mind over the years. One time in a conversation with your dad and me, she said, ‘Character is what we are, when no one’s lookin’.’ Mary liked talkin’ with people who needed to do somethin’ with their lives.”

“It sounds like my mom had a lot of good qualities.”

“That she did, laddie; that she did. She was one o’ a kind. And so was your dad.”

“You told me that my father was a college professor, who taught communication,” said Richard.

“That’s right. And like your mither, he was a gude Christian, who lived his faith—as your mom would say—‘even when nobody was lookin’.”

“What else do you remember about my father?”

“Well,” began Mac, “he was very particular aboot how his classes were taught, so he was. Your dad always was glad to make the extra effort for the slow student. So while he expected a lot, he also gave a lot. He dinna lower his standards. He raised students to meet them.”

“Hmmm,” said Richard thoughtfully. He was remembering classes that he’d taken that needed an extra effort he didn’t give. He resolved to give it in future classes, if he should decide to work on another degree.

“That’s really how your dad and I got to be gude friends, and not just brothers-in-law. Bein’ a teacher, he needed to have new information regularly. Since I was a relative and a librarian it was only natural that he’d come to me for help. He needed to do research from time to time, and I assisted him. Sometimes it was for a lecture and sometimes for a book he was writin’. As a matter o’ fact, he and I were writin’ a book together. I valued your father’s friendship very much. We were workin’ on the book when . . . when the accident happened. In those days, your family lived several miles outside o’ Portland, where your father taught. And I lived only aboot a mile from them. One night, they invited me over for a small family party—I canna remember the occasion. Everyone was laughin’ and havin’ a gude time when suddenly your mom said that she needed to lie doon—she wis nearly nine months pregnant with ye. The next thing I knew your dad came rushin’ out o’ the bedroom, sayin’ that he had to take your mom to the hospital. She thought the baby was comin’ early. So, your parents and brother and sister hurried into the car and pulled out o’ . . . the driveway.”

“Why did my brother and sister go?”

“Because it was summer; Kathy dinna have school and Roger was between jobs. They planned to stay with friends in Portland, while your mither was in the hospital.”

Mac’s voice dropped. “That was the last time I saw them alive.”

“Your dad had called your mom’s doctor to meet them at the hospital. That stretch o’ road in those days dinna have much traffic and so your dad could have driven top speed. As he moved into an intersection just outside Portland, a big tractor-trailer rig hit them broadside . . . the driver was speedin’ . . . he was drunk. A woman in a nearby farmhouse heard the crash and went to investigate. By the time she arrived on the scene, a young man in a sports car had stopped. She ran back to the house to call for an ambulance and the police. While she was gone, the young man managed to get the car door open on your dad’s side and found your dad was dead. Your brother, sittin’ next to him, lived just long enough to ask aboot your sister. Your sister died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital; she never recovered consciousness. Your mither died a few hours after the doctor took ye by Caesarean section. Her last words were, ‘Is my baby awright?’ The nurse thought your mither heard her answer that ye were fine.”

“What about the drunken truck driver?” asked Richard, his voice tinged with anger.

“He wasn’t hurt very badly—a broken arm and some bruises,” Mac answered somewhat bitterly. “He didn’t even go to jail for what he’d done.”

“He killed my whole family,” Richard said, both rage and sadness in his voice.

“Yes, Richard, I understand how ye feel, my boy.”

“I hope every day of his life he thinks about how he killed four people, because he didn’t care that he wasn’t fit to drive. I hope he can never drink enough to forget.”

“I don’t know if I said this before, but I did have an uneasy feelin’ when they went rushin’ out o’ the house to take your mom to the hospital. I’ve thought many times since then I should have stopped them and told them to be careful. If I’d delayed them just a few minutes, the truck would have passed through the intersection before your parents’ car got there. And then there wouldn’t have been the accident, and your family would . . . still be alive.”

Richard never realized before that his uncle felt guilty about the accident—that he felt he could have done something to prevent the deaths of his parents and siblings. Taking God’s sovereignty onto his own shoulders was a heavy burden his uncle didn’t need to bear.

“Uncle, it sounds like it would have been impossible to slow my parents down, even if you’d tried. After all, they had to get to the hospital many miles away, as soon as they could.”

“Thank ye laddie, for your comfortin’ words . . . that terrible night was twenty-four years ago. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t think on it. And I’ve been takin’ care o’ ye ever since; in your early years with the help o’ a housekeeper. Ye remember how Mrs. Tolliver took care o’ ye ‘til ye were fourteen years old.”

“Oh yes, Uncle, Mrs. Tolliver was very kind to me.” Thinking again about his lost siblings, Richard asked, “What were my brother and sister like?”

“Well,” answered Mac, your sister was a darlin’ lady with bright red hair. She was a gentle soul, like your mom. I remember she liked to tease a lot. Cathy was devout in her Christian beliefs. She taught Sunday School, and served as a volunteer, helpin’ disabled children. She was just startin’ her senior year o’ high school, and she was smart. She planned to go to college and major in English. As I recall, she had this dream o’ one day becomin’ a writer. Her favorite authors, she used to say, were Jane Austen and Madeleine L’Engle.” Mac’s voice dropped. Almost as if he were talking to himself, he said, “Sadly . . . she never got the chance to fulfill her dream.”

Richard interrupted the silence that followed his uncle’s words. “What about my brother?”

“Yes, your brother Roger,” replied Mac, nodding and smiling. “Even though he struggled a wee bit here and there, he was a gude lad. I can still hear your dad braggin’ aboot how well he played basketball. This was when he was in high school. He loved sports and was gude in all o’ them, as I recall.”

“Was Roger a good student in school?” Richard asked.

“Roger dinna take to studies very well,” Mac responded. “He had some trouble findin’ himself after he graduated. He would stay with a job a couple o’ months and, when he’d start to get somewhere, he’d up and quit. Your mom and dad worried aboot him.”

“I bet mom and dad worried a lot about him when the Vietnam War came along.”

“Yes. Roger was eighteen, the right age—or the wrong age, however ye want to look at it—to be drafted. He went into the Army and after his trainin’, was sent to Vietnam—into the thick o’ the fightin’.

“Did you notice if the war changed him very much?”

“I never really heard how the war affected his outlook on life. As ye know, Richard, he came back after aboot a year with one leg gone.”

Mac stood up from the table and pointed below the knee of his left leg. “He wore an artificial leg from here doon,” Mac said softly.

Richard looked down at his left leg and patted it. “I don’t know how I would have taken the loss of my leg. I hope I would have been as brave as Roger.”

“I never heard him complain or indulge in self-pity, even when he could only watch certain sports, instead o’ participatin’ in them as he once did. Your mom told me that he packed away all o’ his trophies in his room—I guess they were too much a reminder o’ earlier days when he excelled in basketball and track.”

“Did Roger feel bitter about the war, do you think?”

“I don’t think he felt bitter aboot the war. But he dinna understand why people looked doon on him for answerin’ the call to serve.”

“People weren’t rude to him, were they?”

“When Roger first came home he walked with a cane. On one occasion, he was walkin’ downtown with his cane and a young man came up to him and asked him if he’d lost his leg in the war. And when he replied he had, the man said, ‘Got what ye deserved.’”

“Poor Roger. That kind of treatment must have been hard to take.”

“The man who went to war liked to laugh. The man who returned rarely did. Your sister could get him to laugh a wee bit.”

“What did my brother look like? Do I look much like him?”

“Ye don’t favor your brother . . . very much.” Mac looked closely at Richard and then squinted into space, as if he were forming an image of Roger from memory. “While you’re tall and slender, Roger was stocky and muscular in build. His hair was dark broon like yours, and his eyes were blue like your father’s, while yours are hazel like my dear Kathleen’s and your mither Mary’s. His face was rounder than yours. Ye both were born with the Hawkins’ chin—square jaw with a cleft. He dinna have a mustache as ye do; he had a beard for a while after he returned from Vietnam. And one more thing, like ye, he had a slow smile; as if he had to think aboot it first.

At this point, Mac sat back in his chair, lethargically stirring the half-filled cup of tea in front of him. His mind was on the events that led up to the accident that had taken away some of the dearest people in his life.

“Well, I guess I might as well clear the table,” Richard said. He saw that his words interrupted his uncle’s thoughts about the past.

“What? Oh, the dishes. Aye. Ye don’t have to do that. I believe it’s my turn.”

Richard got up and picked up his plate. “You made dinner; why don’t you let me take care of the dishes tonight. Then you can watch one of your favorite TV shows—the Boston Pops is on.”

“Well, okay if ye’re sure.” Mac went into the living room, and settled himself before the TV.