Shadow in Serenity

forty


They had been with the carnival for three days when Carny began to sense something in her father that she hadn’t seen before. It was the integrity of a grandfather, and the dignity of an older and supposedly wiser man, trying to pass some of his experience on to a third generation.

Finally feeling that Jason would be safe with her parents, she allowed them to take him around the carnival as they handled the myriad details that had to be attended to each day before the gates opened. She watched her parents revel in the chance to entertain their grandson, and felt for the first time that the lessons he could learn here might not be all bad.

She also realized that, despite their lifestyle, she loved her parents. And in their own peculiar way, they loved her.

“Do you think a man who lies for a living can ever be trusted?” she asked Ruth as they watched Jason drive her parents off behind the wheel of the golf cart.

“Do you mean Logan?”

“I guess,” she said. “Although I was thinking of Pop.”

“Oh, come on,” Ruth said. “You trust your father. You know he’d never do anything to hurt you or Jason. He does love you, and so does your mother.”

“I know,” she said. “And that’s what makes me wonder about Logan. Do you think that maybe Logan loved me too, in his way?”

“Of course I’ve never met him,” Ruth said, “but I’ve been giving it a lot of thought. I suspect he did. And leaving probably caused him as much grief as it caused you.”

“How do you figure that?”

Ruth shrugged her wide shoulders. “Well, honey, if a man couldn’t change, if he only knew the kind of life where you had to cheat and lie to get by, maybe the last thing on earth he’d want to do is fall in love. Maybe that’s why he left. Love was about to make him do things he was afraid to do.”

Carny fought back the tears threatening her again and said, “He told me I deserved an honorable man.’ “ Swallowing, she said, “I felt in my soul that he meant it.”

“Then I’m sure he did, honey. Maybe he’s more noble than you think.”

“But he backed away from his commitment to confess. He went back to his wheeling and dealing.”

“Maybe it was too much for him all at once. People with lots of sins stacked up sometimes can’t imagine life as a new person.”

Later, when Ruth was tutoring a pair of carnival twins, Carny went to the Ferris wheel. She rode it alone, and when it lingered at the top, giving her a view of the world of her childhood — a view that should have made things clear to her — she remembered Logan’s words again. You deserve an honorable man.

He had meant it. She knew he had. And as crooked as he might have been when he’d come to town, something had changed in him. But it wasn’t enough.

As the sun set, she wept in her lonesome seat in the double Ferris wheel. She wept for all the dreams she’d had as a child, walking alone down a midway teeming with families. She wept for the broken heart she kept having to mend, even after vowing it would never be exposed again. She wept for the hopes Logan had tricked her into embracing, when she’d known better all along.

“Jesus,” she whispered, “you’re plenty for me. Please help me stop wanting things I can’t have.”

The Ferris wheel came to a stop while the jockey let off some passengers, and she looked down at the lights blinking beneath her. She listened to the clashing sounds of the rock music at the Himalayan, and the twangy country music at the Bucking-Bronco-Bull ride, and the dubbed voice at the House of Wonders. It all reminded her of a childhood full of chaos and longing, where roots weren’t allowed to grow and friendships were never planted. A youth where trust was never cultivated, and life was an endless pursuit of something that didn’t exist.

That night, when she was back in Ruth’s trailer, Carny came to a sudden realization.

“He did give me something I needed,” she whispered.

Ruth’s fingers stopped on her computer keyboard. “What would that be, baby?”

“He reminded me that I could fall in love. And that I’m not invincible. That, after all these years of standing on my own, of insisting that I didn’t need anyone, maybe I really did, after all.”

“You don’t need anyone, Carny. But there’s nothing wrong with wanting someone.” Ruth turned her body around on the bench she sat on. “Look at me, honey. I weigh more than anybody I’ve ever met. I can hardly get up to walk across the room. For years, I made a living getting gawked at all day. But at night, when it’s late and dark and cold in this trailer, I sometimes wish …”

Carny waited, but Ruth didn’t seem able to say the words. “What, Ruth? What do you wish?”

Ruth’s eyes filled with tears, and she blinked them away. “Oh, baby, I want more for you than I have. And you do have more. You have that little boy. But you should have even more. You deserve so much. And there’s not one thing wrong with your wanting someone to hold you at night.”

Carny wiped the tear stealing down her face. “It makes me feel weak. It sets me up to fall.”

“I don’t know what’s worse, baby. Never getting off the ground at all, or taking off and falling. Personally, I think I’d choose to make the memories. Maybe there’s an ending you haven’t predicted yet, child. Maybe your story’s ending is a happy one.”

“No, Ruth. I don’t think so. How can I ever let myself be vulnerable again?”

“I believe you will, Carny. And when you do, it’ll be all right.”

But Carny wasn’t convinced. She went back to her parents’ trailer, slid onto the small bed with her son, and held him close as she slept that night.

When a week had passed, and the carnies were tearing down, preparing to head to California, Carny couldn’t avoid it any longer. It was time to go back to Serenity. Time to confront the disappointment in the faces of her friends. Time to admit that she’d been as big a fool as they’d been.

They waited until all the rides had been dismembered, until all the booths had been loaded onto their trailers, until there was nothing left but concrete and tar. Finally, Carny saw the wistful look on Jason’s young face. “It’s all gone,” he said softly. “And it happened so fast. Like magic. Only in reverse.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“The best part came first. And then there was … just nothing.”

His words were truer and more profound than he knew, and they left an ache in her heart. Yes, the best part did come first, and when it was gone, it left only dust and garbage. But the imprint of it on their minds remained.