Hope and I made it halfway up the ladders, single-stepping like little kids, before my ladder started going down. “Drop it!” I yelled, and because we had already planned for this scenario, we launched the wood away from us and I jumped from my ladder as it fell over into the mud. “Crap. I’d give anything for solid ground out here.” The chunk of wood I’d propped the back corner of my ladder on to keep it out of the mud had sunk out of sight.
Three tries later, after sacrificing larger pieces of lumber for ladder stabilizers, we made it all the way up with the plywood. Drew stabilized it from the top, and after five minutes of “To the left. Now up. Wait. Maybe down a little? How does that look? Right. Just a little. Too much. Back left—but only a smidge,” Drew finally yelled, “That’s it! Hold it!” And he sank nails across the top and as far down as he could safely lean. “It’s harder than I thought it would be to hit the studs. I thought I could eyeball it, but I keep missing.” Judging from the frustration in his voice, if he’d been working alongside some friends instead of his mom, he would have peppered the statement with a half dozen curses.
“Just do the top and edges. That’ll hold it. We’ll figure out the middle,” I said, still holding tight to the plywood to keep from tipping sideways on my ladder.
“Got it. You can let go.” He disappeared behind our first solid wall.
Hope and I looked at each other, not moving. Letting go is always harder than you think it will be. When we finally climbed down and took a dozen steps back to admire our accomplishment, my stomach flipped over. The major ordeal had resulted in little more than a postage-stamp-size board on an enormous envelope. Hope and I sighed in harmony. No need to say it; we all knew this was going to be about as much fun as laying foundation block.
We walked around to the side of the house, by the unfinished garage, to get the next four-by-eight sheet, stopping beside Roman for a sample of the strength potion he’d mixed up for us. He zipped around after nom-nom-nomming an enormous bite from a green plastic shovel, throwing rocks into a puddle like they were boulders.
“Hershey likes it,” Jada said, offering some to the happy Lab. She lapped at the green-gray mud, tail wagging. “She’s going to be the strongest dog in history!”
“Any more and she’s going to puke in the car. That’s enough,” I said. Then, when Jada’s face fell toward a frown, I added, “If her powers become obvious, we’ll be overrun with people trying to steal your secret formula. Best to keep this potion a family secret.”
I held the shovel near my lips, nearly gagging at the moldy, rotten seafood smell, but I managed a string of eating noises. Hope was less convincing with her sample, but then we both made a huge show of lifting two sheets of wood like they were nothing. We made it around the corner before we had to dump one sheet off, prop it against the house, and then continue to the library corner for the next attempt.
The second sheet was a little easier, but only because it covered half of a window and Drew could hang out the larger opening to help us. Sheet number three was as slow and painful as the first had been. By the time it was up, we were all ready to go home. I had been up in the night long enough to be fully exhausted. I didn’t bother telling the kids that it would get easier or go faster next time, because they wouldn’t believe it any more than I did. It was slow, hard work. Period.
Tools and supplies loaded in the shed, and cooler, kids, and slightly ill-looking dog loaded in the car, we pulled down the long potholed driveway.
No one looked back.
We moved bedtime back an hour to pile up in front of the television with a movie and popcorn. Roman and Jada fell asleep almost immediately. I managed to eat my share of popcorn before I started dozing, but Hope and Drew were wide awake when the credits rolled. Well, their eyes were open, even if their bodies were noodle-limp with exhaustion.
I got up and turned off the television. “Get some sleep. Another big day of school tomorrow!” My attempt at cheer sounded more like mockery. They yawned, mumbled, and dragged their feet up the stairs, Drew’s feet hitting as silently as a ninja’s and Hope’s like an elephant.
Jada was too heavy for me to lug up, so I pulled Roman’s Winnie the Pooh blanket to her chin, turned out the lamp, and lifted Roman, intending to carry him to my bed. Only because I was too tired to go all the way up the stairs, I thought. But I reminded myself about the honesty pledge and admitted that it was because I was afraid. That was enough to make me stubbornly carry him up to his own bed after all. Fear wasn’t in charge of my actions anymore.
That was still sort of a lie, but it was the truth I was working toward, so I let it slide.
I climbed into bed feeling very alone. “Help me, Benjamin,” I whispered, closing my eyes almost tight enough to hold back the tears. “Help me find sleep.”
As soon as I relaxed my muscles enough to sink deep into the mattress, like I was being pressed into a pad of Play-Doh, he was there, sitting cross-legged with his eyes closed, mouth closed, and mind open. He wasn’t smiling, and I wasn’t sure my impression of him smiling the night before was right anymore. Maybe it had been a warning, a grimace. But he wasn’t there to share facial expressions that predicted the future. He meant for me to forget the future and the past and be right there in that single moment to find peace.
I did my best to throw the well-fortified walls of my mind down, to relax and be so fully myself that I became no one and everyone. I don’t know how much of that I accomplished, or even how accurate my guess of his intention was, but somewhere along the line I had stopped questioning his existence. It didn’t feel odd or embarrassing to know he was waiting in this meditation world. It felt natural and real. I drifted out, growing large enough to hold the whole house, then the country, the earth, and nearly large enough for the whole universe to fit inside me before I drifted to sleep.
The kids didn’t make a sound all night, and neither did my dreams. They were silent shadow movies with neither a benevolent nor a malevolent intent. Benjamin was never part of my dreams; they were a place he sent me alone. I faced them like I did the day, with my chin raised in a false bravado that was becoming more and more the real thing.
–14–
Fall
Loyalty Won’t Save You
I left work early to get new brakes on my car and made it home before the kids. Being in the house all by myself was a fantasy that almost never came true. Having Hope and Drew in elementary school and Jada in kindergarten made for a noisy life. I was smiling right up until I opened the car door and heard the god-awful noise. It was a hellacious animal cry, somewhere between a whine and a scream. It was the sound I imagined a forest animal caught in a bear trap might make. But it wasn’t in the forest; it was coming from behind my house.