* * *
That night, Brenda and Charlie and I meet at the base of the Purina Tower. I’ve invited Ryan and Amanda to join us, and after we’ve climbed to the top, the five of us sit in a circle, holding candles. Brenda lights them, one by one, and as she lights them, we each say something about Finch.
When it’s Bren’s turn, she closes her eyes and says, “ ‘Leap! leap up, and lick the sky! I leap with thee; I burn with thee!’ ” She opens her eyes again and grins. “Herman Melville.” Then she hits something on her phone, and the night is filled with music. It’s a greatest hits of Finch—Split Enz, the Clash, Johnny Cash, and on and on.
Brenda jumps up and starts to dance. She waves her arms and kicks out her legs. She jumps higher and then up and down, up and down, both feet at a time like a kid having a tantrum. She doesn’t know it, but she’s flip-flapping like Finch and I once did in the children’s section of Bookmarks.
Bren shouts along to the music, and all of us are laughing, and I have to lie back and hold my sides because the laughter has taken me by surprise. It’s the first time I remember laughing like this in a long, long time.
Charlie pulls me to my feet, and now he is jumping and Amanda is jumping, and Ryan is doing this weird step-hop, step-hop, and shake-shake-shake, and then I join in, leaping and flip-flapping and burning across the roof.
When I get home, I’m still wide-awake, and so I spread out the map and study it. One more place left to wander. I want to save this wandering and hang on to it, because once I go there, the project is over, which means there’s nothing left to find from Finch, and I still haven’t found anything except evidence that he saw these places without me.
The location is Farmersburg, which is just fifteen miles away from Prairieton and the Blue Hole. I try to remember what we planned to see there. The text from him that should correspond—if it lines up the way the others have—is the last one I received: A lake. A prayer. It’s so lovely to be lovely in Private.
I decide to look up Farmersburg, but I can’t find any sites of interest. The population is barely one thousand, and the most remarkable thing about it seems to be that it’s known for its large number of TV and radio transmitter towers.
We didn’t choose this place together.
When I realize it, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
This is a place Finch added without telling me.
VIOLET
The last wandering
I’m up and out of the house early the next morning. The closer I get to Prairieton, the heavier I feel. I have to drive past the Blue Hole to reach Farmersburg, and I almost turn around and go home because it’s too much and this is the last place I want to be.
Once I get to Farmersburg, I’m not sure where to go. I drive around and around this not-very-big place looking for whatever it is Finch wanted me to see.
I look for anything lovely. I look for anything having to do with praying, which I assume means a church. I know from the internet there are 133 “places of worship” in this tiny town, but it seems odd that Finch would choose one for the last wander.
Why should it seem odd? You barely knew him.
Farmersburg is one of these small and quiet Indiana cities filled with small and quiet houses and a small and quiet downtown. There are the usual farms and country roads, and numbered streets. I get nowhere, so I do what I always do—I stop on Main Street (every place has one) and hunt for somebody who can help me. Because it’s a Sunday, every shop and restaurant is dark and closed. I walk up and down, but it’s like a ghost town.
I’m back in the car and driving past every church I find, but none of them are particularly lovely, and I don’t see any lakes. Finally, I pull into a gas station, and the boy there—who can’t be much older than me—tells me there are some lakes up north a ways off US 150.
“Are there any churches out there?”
“At least one or two. But we got some here too.” He smiles a watery smile.
“Thanks.”
I follow his directions to US 150, which takes me away from town. I punch on the radio, but all I get is country music and static, and I don’t know which is worse. I listen to the static for a while before turning it off. I spot a Dollar General on the side of the road and pull over because maybe they’ll be able to tell me where these lakes are.
A woman works behind the counter. I buy a pack of gum and a water, and I tell her I’m looking for a lake and a church, someplace lovely. She screws up her mouth as she jabs at the cash register. “Emmanuel Baptist Church is just up the highway there. They got a lake not far past it. Not a very big one, but I know there’s one because my kids used to go up there swimming.”
“Is it private?”
“The lake or the church?”
“Either. This place I’m looking for is private.”
“The lake’s off of Private Road, if that’s what you mean.”
My skin starts to prickle. In Finch’s text, “Private” is capitalized.
“Yes. That’s what I mean. How do I get there?”
“Keep heading north up US 150. You’ll pass Emmanuel Baptist on your right, and you’ll see the lake past that, and then you’ll come to Private Road. You just turn off, and there it is.”
“Left or right?”
“There’s only one way to turn—right. It’s a short road. AIT Training and Technology is back in there. You’ll see their sign.”
I thank her and run to the car. I’m close. I’ll be there soon, and then it will all be over—wandering, Finch, us, everything. I sit for a few seconds, making myself breathe so I can focus on every moment. I could wait and save it for later—whatever it is.
But I won’t because I’m here now and the car is moving, and I’m heading in that direction, and there’s Emmanuel Baptist Church, sooner than I expected, and then the lake, and here is the road, and I’m turning down it, and my palms are damp against the steering wheel, and my skin has gone goose-pimply, and I realize I’m holding my breath.
I pass the sign for AIT Training and Technology and see it up ahead at the end of the road, which is already here. I’ve dead-ended, and I roll past AIT with a sinking feeling because there’s nothing lovely about it, and this can’t be the place. But if this isn’t the place, then where am I supposed to be?
The car crawls back along Private Road the way I came, and that’s when I see the bend in the road that I didn’t take, a kind of fork. I follow this now, and there’s the lake, and then I see the sign: TAYLOR PRAYER CHAPEL.
A wooden cross, tall as a man, sits in front of the sign by a few feet, and behind the cross and the sign is a tiny white chapel with a tiny white steeple. I can see houses beyond, and the lake to one side, the top of it green with algae.
I turn off the engine and sit for a few minutes. I lose track of how long I’m there. Did he come here the day he died? Did he come here the day before? When was he here? How did he find this place?
Then I am out of the car and walking to the chapel, and I can hear my heart and, somewhere in the distance, the sounds of birds in the trees. The air is already heavy with summer.
I turn the knob, and the door opens, just like that, and inside the chapel smells fresh and clean, as if it has been aired out recently. There are only a few pews, because the entire place is smaller than my bedroom, and at the front a wooden altar with a painting of Jesus and two vases of flowers, two potted plants, and an open Bible.
The long, narrow windows let in the sunlight, and I sit in one of the pews and look around, thinking: What now?
I walk to the altar, and someone has typed up and laminated a history of the church, which is propped against one of the vases of flowers.
Taylor Prayer Chapel was created as a sanctuary for weary travelers to stop and rest along their way. It was built in memoriam to those who have lost their lives in auto accidents, and as a place of healing. We remember those who are no longer here, who were taken from us too soon, and who we will always keep with us in our hearts. The chapel is open to the public day and night, and on holidays. We are always here.
And now I know why Finch chose this place—for Eleanor and for me. And for him too, because he was a weary traveler who just needed rest. Something pokes out of the Bible—a white envelope. I turn to the page, and someone has underlined these words: “Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky.”
I pick up the envelope, and there is my name: “Ultraviolet Remarkey-able.”
I think of taking it to the car to read what’s inside, but instead I sit down in one of the pews, grateful for the sturdy, solid wood underneath me.
Am I ready to hear what he thought of me? To hear how I let him down? Am I ready to know exactly how much I hurt him and how I could have, should have, saved him, if only I’d paid more attention and read the signs and not opened my big mouth and listened to him and been enough and maybe loved him more?
My hands are shaking as I open the envelope. I pull out three sheets of thick staff paper, one covered in musical notes, the other two covered in words that look like lyrics.
I begin to read.
You make me happy,
Whenever you’re around I’m safe inside your smile,
You make me handsome,
Whenever I feel my nose just seems a bit too round,
You make me special, and God knows I’ve longed to be that kind of guy to have around,
You make me love you,
And that could be the greatest thing my heart was ever fit to do.…
I am crying—loud and hiccuping, as if I’ve been holding my breath for a very long time and finally, finally can breathe.
You make me lovely, and it’s so lovely to be lovely to the one I love.…
I read and reread the words.
You make me happy …
You make me special …
You make me lovely …
I read and reread them until I know the words by heart, and then I fold up the papers and slide them back into the envelope. I sit there until the tears stop, and the light begins to change and fade, and the soft, pink glow of dusk fills the chapel.
It’s dark by the time I drive home. In my bedroom, I pull out the staff paper once again and play the notes on my flute. The tune finds its way into my head and stays there, like it’s a part of me, so that, days later, I’m still singing it.
I don’t need to worry that Finch and I never filmed our wanderings. It’s okay that we didn’t collect souvenirs or that we never had time to pull it all together in a way that made sense to anyone else but us.
The thing I realize is that it’s not what you take, it’s what you leave.