Becca is sitting alone at her dining room table, staring out the window again. If she turns her head just so, the sugar maple outside seems to ignite, torching orange and red in the dreamy afternoon light. The proverbial burning bush.
The kitchen is filled to bursting with grub, there are four pies and two types of stuffing and collard greens and mashed potatoes and a turkey baking in the oven, she can smell it’s almost done, with all the fixings. There’s even a batch of homemade fudge cooling on the rack. But the house is empty, neither Sarah nor Reese could make it home this year, and she hasn’t bothered to set the table.
Her reflection in the windowpane looking infinitely older and sadder than it should.
In the days after the bombing a spring storm blew through, thunderheads wailing thick and wet above the city, water puddling in the yards and ditches and gutters and gusting down slantwise with the wild north wind. Rainsplash popping up off the earth like muzzle fire. Becca remembers thinking the heat needed turning down, the world was about to boil over. It was a strange, a portentous, weather. And once the sky and the smoke had cleared Becca watched as everyone came back to work, and to life, again.
History—that’s History with a capital H, the kind of collective trauma with the capacity for paralyzing an entire nation, and the bombing accomplished that, it crippled us all, even if only briefly, even if it did nothing else—when it does finally happen, History has a way of subsuming individual grief into the bigger picture. Minimizing it, in every sense of the word.
What was her loss when compared to the woman who had had her leg amputated with a pocket knife? She was visiting the social security office with her family when the building came down on top of them, tumbling to a stop right atop her knee, and the recovery team needed to get her out of there, and to do it quickly, because she’s bleeding to death and the structure is still collapsing all around them. But the only tool at hand is a pocket knife. This poor soul is awake during the entire ghastly operation. She’s screaming for the doctor to stop, living isn’t worth this pain. Then she does finally survive the ordeal only to discover that her grandmother and both of her children, both of her infants, have perished in the blast.
What was any one person’s loss next to a story like this?
One hour and eighteen minutes after the blast, Timothy McVeigh was pulled over by a state trooper for a routine traffic violation. And three days later, when the boy’s mugshot began circulating, McVeigh was already locked up in the Noble County jail, in Perry, for carrying an unlicensed handgun. The banality of the boy’s getaway plan, the simplicity of his capture, standing as one last insult atop the mountain of hurt he’d already wrought.
Becca tells people how Ben passed and they summon an outsized empathy into their faces, a grief sufficient for mourning one hundred sixty-eight others, and strangely enough it does seem to help. To minimize her pain. Ben died in the backseat of Dean Goodnight’s car. Cardiac arrest. He was in Aura Jefferson’s arms when it happened. They were just two blocks from the emergency room. He was never part of the official record, wasn’t recognized as a hero. Not like that nurse Dean told her about, the one who inspired them to try to help.
Rebecca. Rebecca Anderson.
Same name as her own. Becca likes to imagine that there are others out there—undocumented, whether by choice or mere oversight—other invisibles who wound up losing their lives or their mobility or their sanity or their conceptions of God and country and themselves, and who find that they are lost, now, and wandering.
There have to be others. Don’t there?
Wondering.
Outside, Cecil’s truck is pulling into Becca’s circular front driveway.
She blows a loud raspberry, enough with the woolgathering, Mrs. Porter, and gets up to open the front door. Becca knows better than to offer Cecil any assistance getting out of his pickup. Though when Ben’s big brother rolls up to the front porch, an overnight bag and his precious laptop computer balanced upon his lap, Cecil does allow her to walk around behind his wheelchair and pop him over and up onto her slab-stone porch.
He scowls at the cardboard boxes stacked inside the foyer. “I see you saved some of the work for me.”
She has never appreciated the man’s humor. But during Ben’s funeral, when Cecil ended up cracking self-deprecating, off-color jokes for the good part of fifteen minutes, she started to understand it. These men of hers, they talk tough in order to hide how utterly frightened they are of their own emotions. To the Porter brothers, making fun of someone is the socially acceptable way of saying: “I love you.” By the time Cecil had finished with his farewell speech everyone at the funeral was laughing. Everyone but Cecil.
Ben couldn’t have asked for a more touching sendoff.
“I have something to show you,” she says to Cecil.
He follows her outside. Becca has had a ramp installed in the garage, and another ramp connected to the guest quarters. After pushing through the front door (she painted it Ben’s favorite color in the end, sky blue) and into the living room Cecil whispers, “Lord-amighty.”
Just before he died Ben had the builder make some modifications to the granny flat, so the Neverending Remodel From Hell stretched on for another six months after he was buried. And though Cecil has never yet set tread inside, the apartment has been complete for a little over a year now. It’s a bright, airy, two-story living space: two bedrooms, two baths, a kitchenette, a loft overlooking the main sitting area. Either a cast-iron spiral staircase or the elevator will take you up to the second floor.
Becca opens the door into the main bedroom.
“This is where you’ll be staying.”
Cecil tosses his things onto the bed and wheels into the master bathroom. She has installed an electronic lift, handicap railings, two extra-wide benches in the shower. The vanity has also been elevated—four inches, room enough for the extra-large wheelchair—and an array of articulated mirrors are capable of swinging several feet out from the wall so Cecil can tend to his skin.
“Let’s go upstairs,” she says.
Cecil follows Becca into the great glass-walled elevator, which whisks them on up to the second floor. When he lays eyes on the workshop Cecil says, “Oh my God. Becca.”
“Ben came home after one of your basketball dates,” she explains. “He was talking nonstop about your stained glass windows. He was . . . you could say Ben was emotional about it. We’d been talking about asking you to move in with us, into the granny flat when it was done. I guess he thought this space might seal the deal.”
The studio sports an open floorplan with plenty of natural light: twelve-foot ceilings, more than enough storage space, windows spanning all four walls. Any direction you look there’s a flare of fall color to be seen. Tree leaves seething in the crisp November breeze. Cecil pushes over to the supersized island—it’s large enough he can construct nearly any size stained glass window he wants to—and bends to examine the vertical storage slots built into the shelving there.
“A lathe,” he says, touching the tool. “Cubbyholes for the glass.”
“There’s a desk and printer over here. And over there are the phone and an Internet connection for filling your orders. A packaging station. This, what’s it called, this worldwide website storefront? Where you’ve set up shop?”
“eBay.”
“Yes. Well eBay should work just fine up here. How’s business, by the way?”
“I wish I could grow two more hands,” Cecil laughs. “Who knew everyone and his mother would be willing to send money to an absolute stranger for a stained glass window?”
“Well if you would agree to move in with me, I know someone who’d love to help. And I could use your help. My hands are full, Mr. Porter, if you’ll remember.”
Cecil doesn’t answer but he’s nodding, thinking and nodding.
“Are you still going to that church in Langston?” Becca asks.
“Every Sunday.”
“I have a theory. That you just go to watch people admire that window.”
“That’s as good a reason as any, I guess.”
A car horn is honking outside—three abbreviated bleats—so Becca excuses herself, leaving Cecil to explore the apartment. She hopes he’ll stay longer than overnight. If not this visit, then maybe the next one.
You stubborn old coot, she thinks, quick-walking back through the garage for the house, I’ll wear you down yet.
Back downstairs, in the kitchen, Dean Goodnight and a very pregnant Samantha Goodnight are unloading the sacks of ice Becca sent them to fetch. She’ll be churning homemade ice cream later and wanted to be sure they wouldn’t run out.
“That was quick.”
“There was nobody on the road,” Samantha says.
It’s Sam, Becca keeps reminding herself, not Samantha. Though why a woman would want a boy’s nickname Becca will never know. Especially a woman as gorgeous as this one. With that big round belly, that pale creamy skin, she looks so soft and maternal and exquisite. Like a lost or forgotten sculpture you might stumble upon in the Louvre. The Goodnights are going to have an absolutely beautiful baby.
Sam starts to kneel down before the freezer but Becca waves her away.
“Save your energy, dear. I won’t be responsible for that back going out two weeks before your due date.”
While Becca is replenishing the ice Dean limps back out to his car. When he returns the big Indian is carrying a sack of groceries under one arm and Caleb Grimes under the other, the boy wiggling and giggling, trying not-so-desperately to break free.
“Look what I found.” Dean drops the boy on the floor and the paper sack on the marble countertop, groaning overloudly for effect. After three knee surgeries Mr. Goodnight is moving a little slower than before, he’s even gained a little weight. But Becca thinks he carries it well. She might even like to fatten him up a tad more.
“Yakoke,” Caleb says to Dean.
“Ome,” Dean answers.
Caleb skips up to Becca—she’s on her knees in front of the freezer door, down at his level—and takes her face into his hands, forcing her to look him in the eyes. “Momma,” he says to her, very seriously, he is touching her cheeks and he says, “where’s Uncle Cecil?”
“He’s up in the apartment.”
Caleb wiggles a finger, correcting her. “He’s in the tree house.”
“The tree house, then.” Becca smiles. She can’t help it, she can’t ever stop smiling, it seems like, around this adorable little boy. Seven years old going on thirteen.
“Momma. When are we unhiding the Christmas decorations from the cardboard?”
“After dinner. And after you help Uncle Cecil unpack his suitcase.”
Caleb drops his hands, darting for the garage.
“Caleb! You be careful in that tree house! There are power tools and saws and sharp pointies every place you look. Don’t touch anything unless Uncle Cecil says it’s okay.”
“Okeh.”
Both Dean and Sam are watching Becca.
“Are you two ready for this?” she asks.
Sam says “Yes” at the same time that Dean is saying “No,” so she punches playfully at his arm.
“Ouch.”
“Listen,” Becca announces. “I have a favor to ask.”
“Anything,” Dean says.
“Come into the study a minute.”
Inside the office, there is a red file folder lying on Ben’s old mahogany desk. Becca gives it to Dean. The lawyer delivered the paperwork this morning. She had asked him to stay for dinner but of course Gomez already had plans.
“It’s a living trust,” she explains. “I’m fifty-five years older than Caleb, so if anything were to happen, God forbid, to me, this document basically states that the two of you have agreed to step in as his legal guardian. To raise him like you would your own. There will be money. Plenty of money. But I wanted you to read it over. Think on it awhile. And then let me know.”
Dean sits in Ben’s plush leather chair, rubbing on his knee and scanning through the document. He’s studying tribal and criminal law now, at Oklahoma City University’s law school, working toward a legal degree, and in Becca’s experience a lawyer’s ears don’t start working until he has absorbed every word of an official document.
“This work you’re doing with Caleb,” Becca says to Dean. “Teaching him Choctaw. He loves it. He loves you. Both of you. And I want to make sure he’s taken care of. No matter what happens.”
“Can I take this home?”
“Of course.”
“Alright. We’ll call you this weekend and talk more about it.”
“That’s fine.”
“Becca,” Sam says, “I’ve always wanted to ask, and I hope this isn’t off limits, just let me know if it is and I’ll shut up. But when you were adopting Caleb? When Dean let you read Billy’s case file and you found out that Caleb’s great-great-grandfather, Billy’s great-grandfather, what was his name?”
Dean looks at Becca and says, “Eli.”
“Eli Cain,” Becca says, nodding.
“Right,” Sam says. “Dean, well. He told me Eli was your father?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I know how this helped with the adoption. Dean said it made things go so much smoother, having the blood relation and everything. But what I really wanted to ask was, how did you feel? When you found out? What was that, you know, like?”
Becca sighs. The truth is she still can’t believe it.
“I felt, I guess, everything. Everything all at once. Aunt Mabel told me dad was catting around on my mother. So I shouldn’t have been too surprised. But I was. Surprised and shocked and sad. At least initially. Sad for my mother. To know that the man she loved was hiding something like that. But happy, too. Happy for Caleb. Happy for me. Because I’m able to give him something I didn’t have much of at his age. Stability, security. A home. A routine. Love, basically.”
“Has Caleb visited Billy?” Dean asks.
Becca is shaking her head no.
“After the trial, once Billy realized he wasn’t going to be executed, he signed away his parental rights almost immediately. But then he stopped taking my calls. Just like that. Anyway it was a big help, especially with Willa. Someday, I’d like Caleb to have something to do with his parents. To be able to talk with them. Someday. I’m just not sure, yet, how that would work. Caleb’s great-grandmother, Caroline, she wants to see him. But Caroline says she is too old to care for a child.”
“Willa,” Dean almost spits the name.
“Give her just a small break, Dean,” Sam says. “She’s . . .”
“She’s back inside, is what she is. Two months out of jail. All she has to do is not screw up. And she’s sent up on a possession charge. Five years mandatory minimum. Nothing the judge or Wolfman or any of us could do to save her. I will not give that damn woman a fucking break.”
“Dean,” says Sam, shielding her tummy with both arms, “we talked about the cursing.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Will you stay in the public defender’s office?” Becca asks. “After you graduate?”
Dean leans back into Ben’s chair, composing himself.
“I think so.”
“Would you have taken Timothy McVeigh’s case?”
Becca’s not even thinking when it comes out of her mouth.
Dean looks stunned to be hearing the question.
“It wouldn’t have been allowed. I was a witness. I was on scene. I saw . . . people die. I saw . . .”
“But hypothetically. Say you weren’t. Would you want McVeigh to be executed?”
What’s come over her?
But Dean won’t answer. He’s standing, excusing himself from the room, limping outside to watch the leaves.
“I’m sorry,” Becca says to Sam. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what . . .”
“Don’t worry about it,” Sam says, hugging Becca. “He’s fine. He still gets worked up about it sometimes.”
Sam steps out into the yard to talk with Dean.
Becca sits in Ben’s chair, the leather sighing softly as she settles, and watches the two of them through the office window. They’re doing a great job with the marriage, judging from what Becca has witnessed over the last year and a half. They are as communicative as she and Ben ever were.
More so, even.
What did she know about communication, after all? Becca couldn’t even claim to know her own husband. Not really.
But say what you want about Big Ben Porter—and people, they most certainly do—he was real. Bigger than life itself. With colossal appetites and flaws, but also enormous virtues.
The way he used to make her laugh.
Becca’s big bad Ben.
There is a freestanding basketball hoop planted beside the driveway. Ben had it built when Reese was about Caleb’s age, and Becca can see Cecil and Caleb are out there under it, bouncing the basketball on the concrete, talking trash as they shoot. She doesn’t really approve of this whole trash-talking thing. But Caleb can’t get enough of it. Sometimes he’ll start speaking Choctaw words to Cecil and the old man gets so flummoxed—he can’t understand a word of what the boy is saying and imagines the worst, of course—and Caleb will just laugh and laugh.
A buzzing sound in the kitchen. Turkey’s done. As Becca is pulling the bird from the oven she hears another horn honking in the front yard. The Franklins have arrived, Aura and pastor Nate. After putting the groceries away she steps outside, leaving the front door open, to stand watching from the porch.
Everyone is here.
Caleb is talking them all into a game of basketball. Soon it’s three-on-three, Caleb and Cecil and Nate against Aura and Sam and Dean. Sam is dribbling awkwardly toward the basket, trying to waddle around Cecil’s chair, but the old man steals the ball—those arms of his are so long—and tries breaking for the basket. But Aura’s in his face now, she’s not giving him any ground, so Cecil passes the ball off to Caleb, who dribbles toward the goal only to be blocked by the twin towers of Dean and Aura. Caleb passes the ball back to Cecil and he shoots, the ball dropping through the basket with a whoosh!
“Nothing but net!” Cecil crows, spinning his chair in a little celebration dance.
And everyone is laughing.
But Caleb is hurt. He’s come down hard on a knee and his eyes are tearing up, then he’s crying. Becca steps down from the porch, jogging for her little boy, but by the time she gets there everyone has converged on the child, huddled with concern around him, and he’s already looking better.
“Umbrella,” Cecil says, smiling at Aura.
Aura is smiling back, smiling and nodding her head.
“Yes.”
“What’s umbrella?” Becca asks.
“It means we’re a team,” says Aura.
And they are. A team, Becca thinks, and a family.
Caleb is loving the surplus of attention. He’s hamming it up for Cecil.
“Next time let me make the shot, Uncle Cecil! Don’t be such a big fat ball pig.”
Everyone is laughing again, Aura whispering in Cecil’s ear, Sam making eyes at Dean. In a little while, Becca knows, it will be time to make the gravy, to set the table and call them all inside for dinner, where they’ll suffer Cecil’s inappropriate stories and laugh at Caleb’s insatiable questioning and speculate about the imminent arrival of the Goodnight baby, maybe a Franklin baby, too. It might be Becca’s wishful thinking, but is that a baby bump under Aura’s jacket? Becca keeps hoping she’ll hear the Franklins are pregnant. They’ll unbox the Christmas decorations while Dean and Nate lie on the carpet before the fireplace, watching the football game, bellyaching about how much they’ve eaten.
But first Becca just wants to enjoy this moment. There’s another game going. She can hear the ball slip-slapping on the concrete and the pleasant babble of these now-familiar voices and laughter—Caleb’s laughter, Aura’s and Dean’s and Cecil’s too—rising through it like a bell.
When Becca was a child, Aunt Mabel taught her that a prayer should always begin with some form of thank you. And so the prayer she finds herself saying is at once a thanksgiving and a plea, an invocation and a benediction. It is a celebration of life, of this strange new family she has found, of this eternal, this blessed and powerful Now, and of laughter.
Laughter ever after amen.
Amen.