March 21, 1993
He died?” Little Am protested, sniffing loudly and reaching for a tissue. “Harper died without ever seeing his baby grow up?” She frowned and shook her head. “That’s not fair, Grandam. I’m beginning to hate this story.”
Amethyst gazed at her namesake and gave a little chuckle. “Life is rarely fair, child. And it’s not a novel or a movie, where you can write the ending to suit yourself. The good Lord knows that if I had been creating this plot, I would have let my dear Harper live to a hale and hearty old age. But yes, he died. On January 14, 1928, I placed Conrad on his chest, held both of them in my arms, and committed my husband to God’s keeping.”
“Weren’t you mad, Grandam? I mean, really furious?”
“At whom?”
“At God, of course, for taking him away. God could have healed him.”
“Yes, I suppose you’re right. But the miracles we get in life aren’t always the miracles we hope for. I was angry at first, certainly—at God, and at Harper, for leaving me. It’s part of the process of grief. Eventually the anger subsided, the pain lessened, and I went on with my life.”
Little Am dried her tears and gazed at her great-grandmother. “Did you ever get over him? I’ve heard that you never get over your first love.”
“When love is real, you don’t ’get over it’ at all,” Amethyst answered with a smile. “It stays with you forever, expanding your heart and enabling you to love others more deeply. Love is a gift, child, a grace.”
Amethyst watched while her great-granddaughter pondered the words. She was too young to understand; she hadn’t yet met someone who would enrich her life the way Harper had enriched hers. But her time would come, and when it did, Amethyst prayed that she would choose wisely.
“So,” the girl continued, “Con never really knew his father. That explains a lot.”
“Yes, I suppose it does,” Amethyst mused. “But it doesn’t explain everything. Conrad grew up—well, strangely. From the time he was old enough to understand, I made sure he knew all about Harper—what kind of man he was, what kind of principles he stood for.”
“But it didn’t take,” Little Am said bluntly. “Grandpa didn’t turn out to be anything like his father. He turned out more like . . . well, like his grandfather, Abe. Or Avery. Or whatever he called himself.”
Amethyst felt herself wince. It was true, although she didn’t want to admit it so boldly Still, the girl was bright and perceptive, and she deserved to know the whole truth. “Yes,” Amethyst said at last, “I guess Con did turn out to be more like his grandfather than like Harper.”
“Did Abe stick around?” Am lifted her lip in a sneer as she uttered the name. Clearly she didn’t like what she had heard about her great-greatgrandfather, and Amethyst couldn’t blame her. “Or did he pull his vanishing act again?”
“My father lived with us until the day he died,” she answered quietly. “Eight years after Harper went.”
“And you let him?” Little Am narrowed her eyes. “I can’t believe it, Grandam. That man was poison!”
“Perhaps,” Amethyst conceded. “But he was ill and unable to care for himself any longer. And he was also my father.”
“By ’ill,’ you mean he drank himself to death.”
“I’m afraid so. He needed care, and I was the only one left to give it.”
Little Am peered into Amethyst’s eyes. “But you wish you hadn’t.”
Amethyst shook her head. The girl was much too precocious for her age. But she had started down this path, and she would tell the truth, even if it wasn’t a truth she particularly cared to revisit.
“Conrad adored his grandfather. From the time he was old enough to exert his own will, he spent every available moment with the man. At first I thought it was a good idea—a fatherly influence, you know Con wouldn’t have a thing to do with Enoch Warren, and there were no other men in my life close enough to fill that role. Then he began repeating stories his grandfather told him—he thought Abe’s tales about drinking and gambling were exciting and adventurous. He also began picking up on Abe’s negative and demeaning attitudes toward women.”
“So that’s where he got it,” Am muttered.
Amethyst shrugged. “I’m afraid so. Anyway, I tried to counter Abe’s influence by telling Conrad about his own father, what a good and gentle man he was, how loving, and how righteous.”
“I’ll bet that had about as much effect as a snowflake in—”
Amethyst held up a hand. “I get your point. And you’re right, although I’m not thrilled about your choice of images.”
“Sorry, Grandam. Go on, please.”
“By the time Conrad was six or seven, he had become the image of his grandfather, despite my best efforts. He got it into his head that the freewheeling life of a gambler was the most glamorous occupation on earth. He picked up the most awful language, too, and although he learned pretty quickly never to use it in my presence, I knew it was still part of his vocabulary. He couldn’t seem to grasp concepts like honor and dignity and truthfulness, but he hung on his grandfather’s every word. When people asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, he’d say, ’A blackjack dealer,’ and laugh.”
“That must have been embarrassing.”
“I wasn’t concerned so much about my own embarrassment as about my son’s mind and heart. I tried to talk to my father about it, but he wouldn’t listen, either. Stubborn as mules, both of them.”
Little Am nodded gravely. “That sure hasn’t changed. Grandpa Con quit drinking, but some of the other stuff he learned from Abe has obviously stayed with him.” She bit her lip and sighed. “Do you wish you had done things differently—told Abe to hit the road, for example?”
Amethyst thought about the question she had asked herself a thousand times. “Sometimes I do, to tell the truth. But I was torn between loyalties—my son on one side and my father on the other. I felt as if I had a duty to my father, even though he had abdicated his responsibility to me years before.”
“And if you were choosing now?”
Amethyst didn’t hesitate. “I would choose my son.”
That night, in the quietness of the big house, Amethyst found herself unable to sleep. Her conversation with Little Am replayed in her mind, and a familiar anguish washed over her.
Could she have done better at protecting Conrad from his grandfather’s negative influence? She might have refused to care for her father—thrown him out on his own, abandoned him as he had abandoned her and her mother. He certainly deserved it. Still, Amethyst had learned over the course of nine decades that a person reaped more spiritual dividends by offering grace than by exacting justice.
Her father had, in the end, asked her forgiveness. Amethyst had never been sure of his motives—by then he was dying, and he knew the end was near. But the damage to Conrad had been done. The boy had embraced the worldly legacy of his grandfather rather than the spiritual heritage of his parents.
She sighed and turned over, pulling the comforter around her shoulders. When all was said and done, she supposed, you simply had to trust God—both with your own life and the lives of those you loved. In this world there weren’t even any easy questions, much less easy answers.