Each day in June was warmer than the last, and I found myself increasingly drawn to the coolness of the basement—and my dad’s company. If Dad was concentrating on a clock, I could ask him the kinds of questions I used to ask him before Joel died. Sometimes he had answers to questions I didn’t know to ask. I didn’t know that the roots of a weeping willow reach out as far as the branches above it or that it takes sixteen hundred light-years to fly to a constellation.
And so I spent the last afternoons of school in Dad’s basement, surrounded by time and something more.
“How come grown-ups don’t like birthdays?” I asked.
“Oh, it’s not that we don’t like them,” Dad said. “Some of us still believe a person needs one day a year to be recognized.” Dad smiled. “But some of us don’t want to be reminded we’re getting old. Or maybe I should say older.”
“But the party,” I said; then the cuckoo clock behind him interrupted by announcing the half hour. “You and Mom don’t care about having a party or getting presents at Christmas. How come?”
“The party and presents are nice, but that’s not what’s important. The people are.” I thought about my party and how the bowling, cake, and stuffed monkey were not what was important. Just my nine friends—even if they were a little crazy sometimes.
“Maybe I’m getting old,” I said, resting my elbows on Dad’s worktable, my chin in my hands.
The basement was almost as good as the crawl space under Miss Mary Frances’s library table or the hollow beneath Miss Patti’s front porch. I tried to think of some other topics. Anything that would keep Dad talking and listening.
“I used to look forward to holidays,” I continued. “Back when I was a kid. But then the big day is over and there’s just a big letdown.”
“I remember that. It’s almost like everything before December twenty-fifth is more fun than the actual day of Christmas.”
“You think so, too?”
“Of course,” Dad said, looking up. “And I’m not even a kid,” he added. “But we’re not really talking about Christmas, are we? We’re talking about birthdays.”
“Well … sort of …,” I admitted, feeling my face flush.
“It’s okay to look forward and celebrate your birthday again,” he said softly. Dad rubbed his forehead and then sighed. “And Abby?” Dad looked down sadly. “You’re ten, but you’re still a kid. Be a kid for as long as you can.”
I shrugged my shoulders. Now I was the one who didn’t want to talk. My eyes stung with the faded longing to display ten fingers. Now it seemed like such a silly gesture.
“Did you know the daily rotation of the earth is slowing slightly?” Dad said, changing the subject. “It kind of feels like this year slowed down, didn’t it?” he asked. “Like there’s a lot of gravity. The more gravity, the more time slows down.”
That made sense. Things had been pretty grave around here and definitely slow. Gravity.
“And how about this one: Time slows down the faster you go. As you approach the speed of light, time approaches a standstill.” That sounded backward, but I nodded as if I understood. “So what about when people say, ‘Time flies when you’re having fun’?” he asked.
“This year sure hasn’t flown! It took forever.”
“Not every year will be like this last one,” Dad said. “Please be my hopeful little girl again.”
“Hopeful big girl,” I corrected.
“Please look forward to things,” he encouraged. “It reminds me to do it, too.” Dad pulled me to his side.
“What do you look forward to?” I asked. “I mean, when you’re old, do you still look forward to things?”
Dad paused and then fingered the hands of the anniversary clock, looking to the clock on the wall for reference before setting the big hand.
“First of all, young lady, I’m not old. And second …” Dad paused. He was starting to sound like his old preacher self, with three points and all, and it made me smile. “Second, when you get older, you appreciate each day a bit more because they all go too fast.”
I studied him, the man who could move time.
“I didn’t really answer your question, did I?”
I shook my head.
“I haven’t been looking forward to anything.” Dad took out the oil pen and put a pin drop on the mechanism. “But I’m going to try, honey.”
“What’s the third point?” I asked suddenly.
“What do you mean?”
“Dad, you always have three points. What’s the third point?”
“You know me too well,” Dad said with a laugh, and then admitted, “I guess I do have something I look forward to.” Dad set his tools aside and dusted the top of the clock. He squirted something on his rag and then polished the brass until it was shiny. I waited.
“I think I’ve forgotten Joel’s voice. I just want to hear it again.” Dad’s voice had a ragged edge to it, as if snagging across polyester. “Sometimes I try to imagine the sound of it, but I can’t hear it anymore.” He stared up at the basement door as if Joel might come running down. “How could I lose his voice?” Then he looked at me and very deliberately added, “So when I get to heaven, I know I’ll see Joel come running and I’ll hear him say, ‘Daddy’s home!’” His voice cracked, and if my heart could break, it did.
“I wish you felt the same way about me,” I blurted out.
“Oh, Abby, I love you. I love you so much!” He looked at me with sad eyes. “I just love you differently. You are special in different ways.” He paused, then quietly added, “You’ve always lived up to your name.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” I rested my head on his shoulder. “I don’t know much about that peacemaker stuff.”
“That’s not what your name means,” Dad said. “It’s Hebrew and it means ‘A father’s joy.’”
A father’s joy? A father’s joy. My name meant something. Abigail was her father’s joy. Abigail was also speechless.
“If I miss Joel and his voice, it isn’t because you’re not enough,” Dad continued.
“And Renee?” I asked, pressing for more.
“Reborn,” he said in a whisper. I put the meaning of my name together like pieces of a puzzle. I didn’t feel so small and invisible. I was a father’s joy reborn.
“I was so excited when Matthew was born. A gift from God. I loved him so much that I worried whether I could love another child as much as him. But then you arrived. I was so happy to have a little girl, a daughter.” He smiled in remembrance.
“What does Joel’s name mean?”
Dad tilted his head, as if carefully considering what he was about to say.
“‘Yahweh is God,’” he said at last.
Oh, how I wanted to give him back Joel’s voice. I had seen Joel’s fingerprints, his toys strewn around the house, the crib in our bedroom. I thought of his voice, but I couldn’t imagine the sound. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine a color—orange, but it, too, disappeared. I could think words Joel would say, but I couldn’t hear them.
The clocks ticked in the background, absorbing the silence with their cacophony. “I was having a good day yesterday,” Dad began. “I was going in to pick up something your mom wanted at the grocery store. There was a clerk I used to see. An older lady. Kind of forgetful sometimes, but very sweet. She said, ‘Where’s your little friend today?’” Dad stopped, his voice high and thin, and fragile. “She didn’t know.” His voice now faint as he held back the tears. “I was having a good day. But I couldn’t tell her.”
“So what did you say?”
“I said, ‘He’s not with me today,’” Dad whispered, and wiped his face with the back of his sleeve. “Maybe I’ll write her a note sometime to explain.”
“You didn’t lie.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Joel was happy,” I said, trying to make him feel better.
“This is what I know,” Dad began, as if he’d thought a lot about what he was about to say. “Joel only lived long enough to know good things. He didn’t see evil in the world. He didn’t have any bad memories. Even his death was so sudden that he never knew what happened. I take small comfort in that.” Dad sat back in his chair. He was done. As if rested. Maybe even at peace. I wanted a little of that.
“I saw a boy on the playground, Dad. He had thick blond hair and overalls and a shirt with green stripes. I yelled, ‘Joel!’ but it wasn’t Joel. Some people turned and stared at me. I waited for the kid to turn around. But up close, the boy didn’t even look like Joel.”
Dad nodded his head. I knew he understood. Maybe something like that had happened to him.
“Do you ever wonder what happens when he’s been gone longer than he was alive?” I asked.
I watched Dad set the clocks in motion and turn time backward and forward until everything seemed to match. And as he lovingly adjusted the hands, I wondered why clocks had hands and faces but no eyes.
“We won’t forget, Abby. We won’t forget. A part of him is still alive.”
Death had made only some things past tense. I knew then that I’d never say Joel was my brother. He is my brother and will always be my brother. And I am Joel’s sister.
Still, though we had pictures of Joel, and even some home movies, they were mute. I longed to give my dad the one thing he wanted. My dad, whose big voice used to fill a sanctuary, needed to hear his son. And then my heart began pounding with a little idea and a big hope.
“Just a minute,” I said, jumping up from the table.
“Abby?” Dad questioned as I bolted up the stairs.
On the card table in Mom and Dad’s bedroom was a Dictaphone Dad used for dictating sermons. His handwriting was illegible, but Sherrie the church secretary could “read” his voice. Dad would use a foreign language when he spoke into the microphone, ushering in each new thought with a “New Paragraph” and ending each sentence with “Period.”
When we interrupted him, sometimes he’d let us tape our voice, and he’d play it back for our amusement. When my father played back his own voice, it sounded the same as when he recorded it. But it was not the same when I heard my recorded voice—so unfamiliar and childlike. Matt said it had something to do with hearing through your bones.
The Dictaphone sat among a pile of notes and reference material from Dad’s last sermon. It was dusty and I assumed it hadn’t been used in the last year. I unplugged it and hugged it close as I returned to the basement. I set it in front of Dad and plugged it back in. Dad looked like he was about to say, Not now, Abby, but I pushed the lever to the left and the tape swished in reverse. If I left it on PLAY I could hear the tones go backward over the tape heads. It was so inconceivable to me that sound could be captured and replayed. I didn’t understand how it worked and I didn’t need to know. It could stay magical, and with it I would rewind time.
I pressed PLAY and heard Dad’s resonant voice.
“The seed was sown in different ground. Period. What ground are you today? Question mark. In other words, comma, quote. How’s your dirt? Question mark. End of quote.” This was Dad’s last sermon before we went on our trip. I remembered sitting through his oratory thinking we would soon be at Grandpa and GramAnna’s farm with all of its dirt and his message would make more sense.
Dad looked thoughtful as he listened. Then I fast-forwarded until I hit Dad’s closing prayer. “Heavenly Father, comma, we want to be the good earth. Period. We want to be planted with Your Word and to grow in You. Period. Nourish our faith so that we might weather the storms, comma, the temptations, comma, and the heat. Period. May we bear fruit for You. Period. Amen. Period.” There was a click and then I hoped there was something more. I held my breath. Silence, then a clicking and rustling.
“Just count down. Say anything.” It was Matt’s voice.
“Anything,” I repeated.
“Very funny, Abby,” Matt scolded, then added, “Okay, just count.”
“1-2-3-4-5-6,” I said. “Now play it back and let me hear it.”
“No, say something else,” Matt ordered.
“Testing, testing. 1-2-3. Testing, testing.” There was my voice again, thin, high, young. It didn’t sound like me. Was it really me? No, it was that other me. I was so much younger then. “Okay, Matt, it’s airtime. Let’s do it.”
“And now for The McAndrews Radio Theater, hosted by Matt McAndrews,” Matt’s voice boomed. We were ready with a script and a collection of sound effects, but we were not ready for an interruption.
“Me, too! Me, too!” Joel said, and I could almost see him running in. My heart beat like the ticking of one of Dad’s clocks. I think I stopped breathing, and Dad’s eyes widened as he stared at the recorder controls. It looked like he thought Joel might climb right out of the Dictaphone.
“Joel, not now. This is our show. Go find Mom,” my voice said. I can’t believe I asked him to leave. I felt a useless guilt. “Just turn it off, Matt,” said that selfish me on the tape. Don’t turn it off. Don’t turn it off. Don’t turn it off, I prayed, unable to remember what happened next.
“I pway, too!” Joel begged in his toddler voice that we laughed at, never correcting his dropped letters. When Joel asked Mom to “please pray,” it always came out, “Pweeze pway.” Not only did Joel drop his r’s and l’s, but his t‘s often became f’s. Someone said he’d outgrow it. He never had the chance.
“Joel, say something into the microphone,” Matt said, suddenly accommodating. Joel went uncharacteristically speechless.
“Say ‘I love Abby,’” I suggested.
“I wuv Bee,” Joel repeated. I smiled but I couldn’t look at Dad. Why didn’t I ask him to say, “I love Daddy,” or “Daddy’s home!” But then again, how could I know?
“Say ‘big truck,’” Matt coached.
Joel loved trucks. But he couldn’t pronounce the word, and Matt knew just how it would come out. I forgot about this part of the tape. My hand reached for the OFF button, but Dad shook his head and pulled my hand away.
“Say ‘big truck, big truck, big truck.’” Matt could barely talk he was laughing so hard.
“Matt.” I heard myself scold in that unfamiliar voice, and now as I listened, I found myself mouthing his name in correction a year later. Out came the words in Joel’s little voice, but not as Matt had dictated.
“Big truck, big truck, big truck!” Joel obeyed enthusiastically, and Matt laughed and hit the table with his hand. Joel joined in the giggling, unaware of what was so funny and that he was the source of our laughter. I frowned now just as I must have then.
“Oh, it’s funny, Abby,” Matt rationalized.
“Do you wanna hear it now, Joel?” Matt said, and then the machine clicked off and there was nothing. Nothing but silence. Nobody had recorded anything since July 1970. We had never finished our radio show, and Dad had not preached another sermon.
I tried to remember that day and what was left unrecorded, but somehow it had blurred together with all the other days I didn’t hold on to tightly enough. With this Dictaphone recording, I only had sound. No picture and no real memory of the event. I could barely remember speaking into the mike. The entire episode couldn’t have taken more than thirty seconds.
Dad nodded his head.
“It sounds just like him. I remember now,” Dad said softly. “Thank you, Bee.”
And then I wasn’t sure why I asked the question, but I had to know.
“What happened in the ambulance? Did he say anything?” Dad didn’t answer at first. He just sorted the remaining clock parts and carefully put them in four different boxes. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
“Well,” Dad began slowly, “nothing, Abby. That’s just it. They worked on Joel and asked me questions about my leg. I said I was fine. At first they spoke a language I didn’t understand, and then they didn’t talk much at all. It was like they already knew something I didn’t want to know. I felt so helpless. And the whole time that siren was ringing in my head.”
“So you didn’t get to talk to him?”
“I talked to him. He might have been alive, but I don’t know if he heard me,” he said as if that still bothered him. “I said, ‘Hang in there, kiddo, I love you.’” Dad looked like he was thinking hard. I patted him three times so he could feel my “I love you.” Dad unconsciously patted the clock as if it were Joel. “I hoped he’d say ‘Daddy.’” He closed the face of the anniversary clock. I had no idea if it worked now or if he was finished, but I had an idea that was as much as he could relive. “I needed to hear him say ‘Daddy,’” he continued. “It would have sounded like a prayer.”
Dad put the clock on a shelf with the other works in progress and clicked off his desk lamp. “Thank you, Abby.” He rested his hand on mine.
“Daddy,” I said, hoping I could be my father’s joy. Hoping my voice would sound like Joel’s. “I love you, Daddy,” and then I started crying. Just softly at first, but then it got louder until I was sobbing. I couldn’t make my dad happy by saying what Joel would have said. I couldn’t be my father’s joy or anybody’s joy.
“I can’t be Joel.”
“Abby, Abby.” Dad pulled me close. “You just need to be Abby.”
“But I can’t even do that good enough.”
“You’re wonderful just like you are.”
“No, I’m not. I don’t get Roman numerals and I …”
“What does it feel like to be you?”
“My stomach hurts all the time and I think about things so much harder than everybody else, and I’m scared, and I don’t know how to stop worrying.”
“Well then, that makes two of us,” Dad said at last. “Are you looking forward to talking to Matt’s counselor next week?”
“Not really.” I wiped my tears and laughed. “But I guess that’s what you do when your fears get too big for your heart.”
I had to begin somewhere. Mrs. Clevenger had said that the end of the movie didn’t have to be sad, and that I might get a chance to write it differently. She knew I had something to say. And so I knew I would talk and I would relive the last year and I might find help and hope in the process. It might all begin with telling my story.