Chapter 7: Out of touch

“Somehow, John always did the right thing.  It wasn’t always the first thing he wanted to do, but when it came down to what had to be done, he did what was right.  I  remember once when we were trying to set the belt of the conveyor on his harvester and the damn thing wouldn’t set in the spot that it was supposed to.  He cussed at it for a little while and threw his wrench and hammer into the ground a few times, but he never gave up on setting it right.  Eventually, he was able to fix it, danged if I know how, but he fixed it up right.”   

            “When did you two leave Vanceboro and go off to the Pacific?” Abby set her cup back down on the table and leaned back into the old loveseat.

            “April.  April 1944.”

            “Were you drafted or did you enlist?”

            The old man sat there for a minute.  “We enlisted.  Both of us had just turned eighteen and were probably going to be drafted soon anyway.”  He walked over to the mantle where the gold-rimmed picture frame of him and Todd’s grandfather sat. He looked at it for a few seconds and then picked it up and carried it over to Abby.   “We didn’t want to go, but we knew that it was something that we had to do.  My older brother, Richard, had shipped out a few months earlier. . .” his voice trailed off.

            “What happened to him, Mr. Clemment?”

            “Nothing really.  It was just hard on my ma and pa.  He lost a close friend of his during the first World War.  I can remember pa pulling Richard out onto the back porch and sitting him down before he left.  Richard came back in the house crying, but he turned back to door, and told pa that he had to go.”

            “And when you left?”

            “And when I left, he already knew what the argument would be.  Pa tried to tell me that the war was so close to an end that I’d never see the ocean.  But he knew that argument just wouldn’t hold up.  He knew. . .”

            “He knew that you couldn’t let just your brother go off and fight in a war that meant so much.”

            “Hell, Richard didn’t even know what it meant when he went off to Europe.  We had all heard stories about what was going on in Germany, but how could you really believe them?”  He was staring her right in the eyes.  “He didn’t know what he was headed into when he left.”

            “Did he tell you before or after?”  She bit her lip realizing that this really didn’t matter.

            “He told me of the atrocities in letters just before we were to leave.”  Clemment covered his face with his hands.  “You wouldn’t understand Abby.  It’s not that you’re not smart enough to understand, but rather, you couldn’t possibly imagine what kind of evil was going on.”

            Abby sat there stunned.  She had never been told before that she couldn’t comprehend something.  The idea had forever seemed foreign to her, but now, for this one instant it was true.  For a silent few seconds, she vividly remembered films she had seen of the concentration camps and the horror that they contained.

            “I guess John left for the same reasons you did?”

            “He didn’t have an older brother, but Richard acted like a brother to both of us.  Abby it wasn’t so much the fact that Richard convinced us that it was the right thing to do, but rather, it was his unselfishness at the end that made us go.  I know that doesn’t make any sense to the kids of your generation, but that was just the way it was.”

            The air through the den was sucked in by the open window.   It was a nice breeze compared to what they were used to.

            “I guess Todd doesn’t tell you a whole lot about his grandfather huh?”

            “I think he is confused.  He used to talk about him every now and then but lately it has become all the time.  He has become consumed by this force to find out what happened to his grandfather.  I know that it sounds weird and corny and whatever else kitchy thing you can think of, but that’s what it feels like is going on in Brad’s head.”

            “What is he so confused about?”

            “That’s what I’m talking to you for.  Mr. Clemment. .”

            “It’s Ralph, Abby.  Ralph.”

            “Ralph, I don’t know.  We both know that John Edward committed suicide when Todd was fourteen, but what took him so long to question it?  I’m not a psychology major, but it sounds like he repressed the memories of his grandfather and now, living in the house, is bringing the memories back out.”

            “I’ve wondered that.”

            “Sir?”

            “Wondered why Todd wanted to move into the house.  Seems like that would be a place that he would want to forget.”

            “If he didn’t claim the deed to the land, it was going to be given up for auction and no one in the family wanted to see that.  Todd and I were the only ones who could afford it, plus it’s not to far from Greenville.”  She took a sip of her sweet tea and a handful of peanuts.

            “But Todd had to know that every time that he walked out of that back porch door that he would be walking over the exact same spot that John Edward shot himself.  How could he do that to himself everyday?”

            Abby sat there for a second thinking.  “He didn’t use that door when we first  moved in.  He would use the door down by the garage and actually built a nice little picket fence that made a bit of a chore to get to that end of the house.”  She held a peanut with her hand between her two front teeth. “But then there was that day that Willy came by the house to drop off a sack of limas; had them shelled down at Gaskin’s ya know, and the old man sat there and talked to him for a good while.  When I came out of the house after getting a few boiling pots of beans going, there they sat out on the back porch.”

            “You’re talking ‘bout Willy Gaskins aren’t you?”

            “Yes sir.  But when I came out of the house, I remember looking down on Todd like he was out of his mind.  He looked up at me and realized my own surprise.  Willy kept on talking and I remember Todd turning his head to the ground and running his fingers along the brick that formed the wall.  He looked up at me terrified.”  Abby stared straight ahead a the wall, her eyes wide but beginning to swell.  “Willy must have sensed something was wrong because he jumped right up, said goodbye, and hopped back in his truck.”

            “Todd realized where he was?”

            “Maybe.  When Willy said goodbye, Todd said bye, faintly, looking down at the dirt.  He got up, walked inside and pulled some letters down off of the china cabinet in the living room.  I had forgotten that they were still up there.  Mary, never told anyone that those letters were there, I wonder how he knew.”

            “I bet he knew a lot about that old house but was just to young to remember everything from his childhood.  Did he read the letters?”

            “No, he just fingered through the envelopes.  He does that a lot, even now.  You can see that he wants to read them, but he just can’t bring himself to do it.”

            “So why haven’t you?”

            “What?”

            “Why haven’t you read them?” 

            She looked at the old man sitting across from her with a hard cold stare.

            He continued, “Why haven’t you read them, seeing that he can’t bring himself to do it?”  She didn’t say anything but continued to stare at him, not believing what she was hearing.  “Abby, you must understand what’s going on here.  Todd is searching for the past and he knows that he has it right there before him but he won’t dare open it because it violates his beliefs.  He’ll never bring himself to open those things if you don’t do it for him.”

            Abby looked away from the old man and then down at her watch.  It was five o’clock.  “I better get going, Mr. Clemment.  Thank you for the chat.  We’ll have to do it again sometime.”  She picked up her purse and walked to the door.  “Goodbye.”  She slammed the door behind her.

            The ride over to the house only took a few minutes.  How could he expect her to open the letters of her husband’s dead grandparents?  It was none of her business what was contained within the bundle bound by a thick rubber band.  It was not hers to touch.  If they were to be opened, Todd would have to do it.  Todd would have to do it.  Todd would have to do it.  Todd couldn’t do it.  Todd can’t do it.  Todd won’t do it.