GABRIEL, COME ON! BREAKFAST IS READY!”
The smell of frying bacon and eggs saturated the one-bedroom rental unit attached to the back of an old farmhouse in Cairo, Kansas. Living on a farm, Maggie and her son, Gabriel, ate bacon and eggs a lot.
The farm belonged to Earl and Vonda Cartwright, who were generous to Maggie and her son. Their dingy white, turn-of-the-century farmhouse sat in the middle of 113 acres of cornfields. As far as the eye could see, flat fields of mature cornstalks grew six and seven feet high. In addition to a garden lined with rows of lettuce, cucumbers, and tomatoes, the Cartwrights kept some cows for milk, several pigs, and a chicken coop crowded with thirty-six hens that yielded dozens of eggs every day. They sold their extra eggs and vegetables at a farmer’s market in town a couple of days a week.
Every few days, Mister Earl—as Maggie and Gabriel called him—would leave a paper bag of vegetables and a carton of eggs on their doorstep. A couple times a month, there’d be a whole chicken in the grocery bag too. If it weren’t for the Cartwrights’ kindness, Maggie’s cupboard would be bare several days a month. Her tips from the Cairo Diner were slight and barely covered their basic needs for food and shelter or the gas for her 1952 Ford pickup.
The modest rental behind the main house had its own entrance, a small stove and sink, a 10 x 10 living area, and one bedroom and bath. The place was tiny, but enough for the two of them.
At a quarter past six, Maggie heard eight-year-old Gabriel stirring. She went to the bedroom they shared as he rolled out of a miniature cot covered by well-worn patchwork quilts. Wearing a pair of faded plaid pajama pants that were six inches too short and a faded T-shirt that he’d nearly worn out over the last year, Gabriel stumbled out and sat down at the table. His disheveled white-blond hair was matted down like the straw in Mister Earl’s barn, and his eyes were swollen from another night of tear-filled sleep.
His mom kept up a steady patter as she went back to preparing breakfast. “You don’t have much time, baby. You need to eat. We gotta leave for school real soon. Hey—how ’bout I bake you a cake tonight? You can help. . . and lick the beaters.”
She checked to see if his countenance had changed. It hadn’t.
“Hey, Sammy’s mom told me at the diner that the boys were gonna go fishing again today down at the pond. You should join ’em. Don’t you think that would be fun?”
The local pond was a favorite place for the boys in town. Whether it was fishing or swimming on a hot summer day, hanging out under the trees, or building forts made with fallen branches, if you were a boy in Cairo, you knew about the pond. Gabriel didn’t respond and kept eating his cereal. Frustrated by her inability to connect, she asked him, “Why don’t you want to go have fun with the other boys?”
No response.
Wiping her hands on her apron, she knelt down beside him. Gabriel remained focused on his cornflakes as if she weren’t there. “Baby, you gotta have some fun. Go play! I want you to go with the boys.”
He shook his head slowly, took his last bite, and scurried to the bathroom and slammed the door.
“Gabe!” Maggie put her ear up to the bathroom door. “It’s gonna be all right. You’ll have a lot of fun,” she said with a quiver in her voice. She rapped her knuckles on the bathroom door. “Gabriel? Gabriel!” she said. “Okay, sweetie, I know you’re in your secret place.” She paused and took a deep breath. “It’s okay.”
Today would be one of the hard days. Not sure what to do next, she heard a soft knock and looked up to see Miss Vonda peering through the dusty screen door. Normally a quiet woman who kept to herself, she was petite but round, in her early seventies with rosy cheeks, a pile of salt-and-pepper gray hair pulled up in a bun, and a hardy disposition. Maggie always found her reserved but kind.
On this particular morning, she was wearing one of her two home-sewn farm dresses, both in light blue. She wore one during the week for farm chores; the other was reserved for Sunday church.
“Here’s some fresh milk from Little Cow.” Her dairy cows didn’t have real names—they were just Little Cow and Big Cow. Maggie tried to gather herself a bit as she approached the door. “Mornin’, Miss Vonda.” She blotted her tear-swollen eyes.
Miss Vonda always seemed to have a smile on her face. “You got enough food?” That was Miss Vonda’s answer to everything. She loved to cook.
“We’re okay,” Maggie replied. “Thank you, though.” There was a bit of an awkward pause until Miss Vonda asked tenderly, “Is he in his secret place today?”
Maggie couldn’t hold it in any longer and began to weep. “I don’t know what to do! I just want my boy to get better, you know? He’s having those terrible dreams again. He barely says two words on the hard days. I just want him to be a regular boy. I want him to live! I’m not sure I can take much more.”
“There, there, Maggie. Tomorrow will be a better day. Let me help you with your dishes.”
On his good days, Gabriel would converse more and seem to escape whatever fears and thoughts were tormenting him. He especially liked it when Mister Earl would give him rides on his red tractor, but that only happened during certain times of the year.
On the hard days, though, he would not talk. Instead, he would withdraw to his “secret place”—a place that existed in his own mind, where he retreated when he was afraid or sad. Physically he might be in the bedroom he and his mom shared, or the bathroom, or he might be sitting on the big red tractor in the barn. That was his favorite spot, and he would spend hours hanging around the tractor on the bad days. The secret place was his haven of safety, a bubble where he could survive the memories of watching his father die and his constant sense of loss and abandonment.
He’d been living with his mother for almost four years since The River took his dad. Before the accident, Maggie only saw him at holiday times when John brought him to see her.
Now it was just Maggie and Gabriel, and she could tell there was still a huge hole in his heart. His memories of times with his father were few but strong. He talked about his dad instructing new rafters before their first run or telling of his exploits over dinner. Most of all, Maggie knew he remembered how strong John was, when he’d pick him up with one arm and say, “How’d you get so big?”
Maggie and John had tried to make it work, but she’d been too young and unprepared. Gabriel wasn’t supposed to happen, but one night of passion turned into a little life that she couldn’t take care of. She was terrified, and eight months after Gabriel’s birth, she left him in the care of his father. She fled Colorado and moved back to Kansas.
Four years later she’d grown up considerably and regretted leaving her boy behind. She wondered if there could be any way to reunite their family. But the horrible news of John’s death changed everything, and while she’d longed to be with her son, she was sometimes overwhelmed by the responsibility of raising a broken boy scarred by the loss of his father. Waves of guilt washed over her daily, and questions relentlessly haunted her.
What would have happened if I stayed?
Why did I run?
Why did he have to die?
Regret filled her heart. Would things have changed if they had been together that fateful day? Would John still be alive?
She was never sure what to do about Gabriel. He didn’t talk much, even on his better days. He was sad most of the time. He was barely making it in school, and he refused to play baseball or go to the pond with the boys. Gabriel was scared of his own shadow, a shy and timid kid who woke up in the middle of the night crying but would never say why. She knew he was still traumatized by the accident, but she couldn’t get him out of this dark place he seemed to be living in. For a little boy to be so depressed seemed unnatural and weighed on Maggie every minute of every day. He was locked inside some kind of emotional prison, and she couldn’t find the key.
But Maggie had grown to love her son with all her heart, and she would never give up on him.
After they finished the dishes, Miss Vonda said, “I better go pull some eggs. I’ll check in with you later.”
Maggie made her way back over to the bathroom door. “Gabe. . . sweetie. . . we have to leave for school. I can’t be late for work again.”
There was no response. She opened the unlocked door to find Gabriel sitting on the floor with his back up against the old bear-claw tub. His small arms were wrapped around knees that were tucked up under his chin. He was staring at the floor, disconsolate.
Maggie walked over and sat next to him. His eyes were red around the edges. They sat in silence for a couple of minutes, then she reached out and patted his arm gently. “I like to go to my secret places too. We’re gonna get through this, baby. We’re gonna get through this. . . Come on.”
She stood up, put her hands underneath his arms, and helped him to his feet. Usually when the hard days came, Maggie would just get upset because she couldn’t figure out how to help him. On this particular day, though, she had an unusual measure of patience. She walked with him into the bedroom and helped him get his clothes on for school. After he was dressed, they returned to the bathroom, where she washed his face with a cold rag and helped him comb his hair. She continued her one-sided conversation.
“Maybe today you’ll get to sit next to that pretty girl Jenny. . . You want me to ask your teacher about that?”
She finally got a little grin from Gabriel, which gave her hope that maybe this day would transform from a hard day to a better day. “Why don’t you go play marbles while I get ready?”
Gabriel had the worn leather pouch of old Bennington marbles that he used to play with his dad. He kept them underneath his cot. He liked to sort his marble collection by color and type. He knew all about the different kinds of marbles: alleys, aggies, Chinas, plasters, and turtles. Playing marbles reminded him of his father, which seemed to make him feel good.
As she was walking into the bathroom, Gabriel finally broke his silence.
“Maybe I could go to the pond after school. Maybe they’ll want to play marbles. Can I take my Benningtons? I bet they’d really like those.”
Maggie’s eyebrows rose. She could hardly contain her joy.
“Uh. . . yeah, I’m sure they’d play marbles with you. We’ll go right after school, okay?”
She quickly closed the door to the bathroom and broke into tears. This time they were tears of relief. Maybe they had turned a corner. Maybe this would help Gabriel out of his shell. Maybe a visit to the pond would help him come alive.
She didn’t know much about religion, but she looked up to the ceiling and kept whispering over and over, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”