Chapter three

. . . whiteness was waiting
when the rain returned
to sadly drum
against the window,
then to dance with unmeasured fury
over my heart and over the roof,
reclaiming
its place,
asking me for a cup
to fill once more with needles,
with transparent time,
with tears.

It rains . . . The Sea and the Bells -- Pablo Neruda

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He had not aged at all. It was the first thought in my mind as I knelt there in that place which was not a real place and looked up at him. And then I realized that not only had he not aged; he actually looked younger. Standing a bit taller, with fewer wrinkles fanning out from his eyes, a bit leaner and lighter on his feet.

Then I remembered what I had learned about him, and could not help but think of the ugly phrase "light in the loafers", and knew for a fact that whoever the malicious person might have been who coined that nasty term, he had never met my father.

Even then, four years past the day when all that he had been was reduced to a handful of ashes, he was still solid, still vital and intense, still young - except for something in his eyes, something that had been old even when he was young.

Still Jack Twist.

And for a few precious moments, he was back in my universe - although I sensed immediately that the truth was far more elemental. The truth was that he wasn't in my universe; I was in his, and even though some part of me knew, on a visceral level, what that meant, I wanted only to stay with him.

I think I would have stayed with him, but he wouldn't allow it.

"Daddy?"

The quiver in my voice was nothing compared to the quaking in my heart, as some part of me was conscious of the scene behind me - of my broken body sprawled out in a ditch as my lifeblood drained away. But somehow, it didn't seem important. Not nearly as important as the image before me. I don't think I'd ever admitted how much I had missed him. I'm not even sure I'd ever completely understood it myself.

When he went to his knees, his eyes wide with shock, I wanted to run to him, to lift him up and feel the warmth of him, the reality of him. But I couldn't. I sensed that this strange place, with its pale, shadowless light and eerie silence, was a place in which I could initiate nothing. I could only respond to whatever he chose to do.

"Daddy, is it really you?"

He nodded, and I felt a sudden vertigo, as if I had fallen through Alice's famous looking glass, into a realm where reality had no meaning. I turned to look down on my own lifeless body, and - in my confusion - I mumbled a string of gibberish, uncertain of what I was saying, or what I should say, or how to find the answers I needed from him.

But if I didn't know what to say, it was obvious that he did know, and he wasted no time saying it.

"Bobby, ya gotta go back."

His voice was hoarse, as if it had been a long time since he'd used it.

"Ya gotta go back - now. It ain't yer time."

The compulsion to obey that voice was almost irresistible, but something in me wanted to resist, to rebel and defy, to make him feel my hurt and my need for him as he struggled to get to his feet.

"But Daddy, I wanna see you. I wanna . . ."

I fell silent when I read the incredible flare of pain in his eyes as he looked down at me.

"Ya cain't, Bobby. Ya gotta go back now. There ain't no time."

And, for a moment, it was like losing him for the first time, all over again, as I tried to tell myself that it wasn't that he didn't want me . . . was it?

"Miss ya, Daddy."

I don't think he meant to allow himself to touch me, or to allow me to see how much he wanted to touch me. But finally, when it was almost too late, he reached out and laid his hand on my shoulder, and I no longer doubted as I felt his love surround me even as he pushed me away.

"Miss ya too, Li'l Buddy. Now go, before it's too late."

He smiled at me, and he was gone, and I . . .

. . . was intensely grateful for the ringing of the telephone that awakened me from the dream that was just on the verge of becoming a nightmare. The memory of my father's final message to me was then - and remains today - unbearably precious to me, but the recollection of what came after that is one I have always chosen to avoid. A month-long stay in the Childress Regional Medical Center, followed by a half-year spent in intense physical therapy, was not one of the favorite highlights of my life, although my mother, in typical Lureen Twist fashion, insisted on reminding me regularly that I was lucky to be alive and should be grateful I was still around to feel the pain.

I thought it was a specious argument and told her so - more than once - and she would respond by rolling her eyes and mumbling something about me being truly my father's son. Although, in that case, I thought she was reaching, for it was dead certain that Jack Twist never once used the word "specious" in his entire thirty-nine years of living.

"I woke you up," said the love of my life when I mumbled my 'hello' into the phone.

"What makes you think so?"

I could hear the smile in her voice. "Because you sound like Oscar the Grouch, and you only sound like that when you're waking up."

I laughed. "Speaking of waking up, you know you could come back over here. And wake me up in a much more interesting way."

"Not a good idea, Hon," she answered gently. "Not tonight. I think you need some space - some time to adjust. Everything's been in such turmoil that you haven't had any time at all to process your grief. And I do know what I'm talking about, you know. When my dad passed away, I discovered that all I wanted was some quiet time, just to think about him, and remember him. I want to make sure you have that too."

"I don't deserve you," I said with a sigh.

"Of course you don't," she agreed, still smiling, I thought, "but you're stuck with me. Now, get up from that desk and go to bed to get some real rest."

"How did you know I was . . ."

"Well, I could claim woman's intuition," she interrupted, "and convince you of my witchy feminine wisdom so that you know you'll never be able to get away with anything. But the truth is that I can hear the ticking of that grandfather clock in the corner by your desk."

This time, my laugh was tinged with sadness. "Lureen would be ashamed of you, you know. She knew the true value of witchy feminine wiles."

"Lureen," she answered softly, "knew the true value of lots of things. Beneath that brassy exterior, there was a lot of love and a lot of wisdom. Now you do what I told you, Bob, and get some rest, and not by putting your head down on that desk either."

"Si, mi capitán." I hoped she could hear the love in my voice, as strongly as I felt it in my heart.

It was still raining when I hung up the phone, and the wind had risen to swirl around the house with a long, low moan that seemed to mourn with me, as I turned again and looked up at my mother's last photograph. Taken before she fell ill, it captured her bright spirit perfectly, with light catching in hair now pale as spun gold. Truly, my daddy's "Yellow Rose".

I wondered for a while if she would find my father waiting for her, but, in the end, I knew better, and I hoped she would not grieve to learn that the thing she had wanted so much in life would remain forever beyond her grasp, even in death. But I refused to pretend that I resented him for her sake; he had lived his life torn and fractured, and I could not wish that he be forced to spend eternity in the same way. Even in death, even when his body was reduced to gray dust, he had been pulled asunder and deposited into two different worlds, neither of which was of his choosing.

My mother had been right; it did matter. A man's wishes concerning the final disposition of his body should be honored. That was a choice that no one should have the right to deny.

I would find Buckback Mountain, and I would take his ashes - the ones still interred in a stone chalice set in a niche in the marble monument standing over the place in which my mother had been laid to rest that very day and the ones buried in a stark grave in a barren little plot set beneath the stormy skies of Wyoming - and I would give him the one thing he had asked of us. I would take him home, to the place where his soul could regain what his life had taken from him.

The antique clock behind me struck midnight, and I sighed, staring once more at the blinking light on the answering machine. More than anything else, I wanted to ignore that bright pulse, and go up to my room in the southwest corner of the house where the sound of the rain was always more distinct and pervasive, where I had been lulled to slumber many nights by its soporific voice.

But there might be something important among the dozens of murmurs of condolence, delivered in formulaic, funereal terms and tones. There might be something I needed to know.

Reluctantly, I touched the playback button, and immediately paged through a half-dozen messages beginning with, "I was so sorry to hear . . ." It wasn't that the sentiments weren't genuine or heartfelt; it was just that I was in no shape to bear up under more of the soft-hearted sympathy that I'd been drowning in all day.

The seventh message, however, was different.

"Hey, Bob. It's Miranda."

My editor, my slave driver, my Svengali - my friend.

"I'm sorry I couldn't be there for you today, but there was just no way to arrange a flight out in time. It may be that the world has become a small place these days, but Katmandu is still Katmandu, and getting to and from is still a major undertaking. Plus this silly twit I'm trying to edit is driving me to drink. Not that I need much driving in that direction. And if you think that's an indication of moral weakness, let me suggest that you spend six weeks in the company of someone who seems to believe that the wisdom of the universe can be accessed through staring at one's own navel. What a sophomoric idiot, but, unfortunately for me, an idiot whose mystical/semi-psychedelic philosophical maundering goes for big bucks on the literary market these days. Comes under the heading of 'no accounting for taste', I guess.

"Anyway, please remember that I'm thinking of you, and that I always thought your mother was a true, one-of-a-kind original. She will be missed, and not just by you.

"And, by the way, just to offer a ray of sunshine in a dark moment, I just got an advance copy of a press release which shows that Star has made its debut on the Times list. So formal congratulations, Mr. Twist. You are now officially a successful author.

"Call me when you can."

Despite the misery of the long day behind me and the desolation that still hovered above me like a blanket waiting to fall, I felt a small rush of satisfaction. Even with the assurances of people like Miranda, people knowledgeable about the vagaries and chaos of the literary world, I had never been completely convinced that the book - the work into which I had poured my life's blood - was really good enough to justify calling myself a professional writer.

Validation was sweet, even though it came draped in darkness.

I went on the next message, and was instantly soothed and touched by the gentleness of the next voice I heard.

"Bobby, it's Grandma Twist. I don't know how t' begin t' tell ya how much I grieve fer yer ma, and fer you, Honey. I jus' wish I'd a known her better."

I felt new tears form in my eyes. "Me, too," I whispered, as the message continued.

"I know I ain't never been much of a grandmother t' ya, Bobby, but that don' mean I don' love ya, Son. When I look at ya, I see what a fine man ya turned out t' be, an' I'm real proud of ya . . . an' then I see my Jack. I hope that don' make ya mad, that I see him in ya, but that's th' truth of it. I still miss him so much. Guess that sounds silly since he's been gone fer so long, but I do. An' even more now that John's passed on.

"Anyway, I hope it'll be some comfort t' ya t' know that I'm prayin' fer yer ma to rest in peace, an' fer you t' find yer own happiness, dear Bobby. Lord knows, there's been enough misery in the Twist family, so maybe things'll work out better fer you. An' if ya ever need family - fer whatever reason - I'm here. Don' reckon there's a whole lot I could do fer ya, but I'd sure try t' give ya whatever ya need.

"An' I reckon you'll be needin' t' decide what you wanna do with this ol' place purty soon. It'll all be yers when I'm gone. So you feel free t' call me if ya want, though I'll understand if ya don't. I wish I'd a done more fer yer daddy, but it's too late t' fix what's long gone. Still I'd be glad t' do whatever I can fer you.

"You take care now. Yer daddy would be mighty proud a you."

There was a soft click as the call ended, and I hurried to turn off the machine. I had heard all I could stand, endured all I could take of that endless day, and the tears were flowing freely. "Would he?" I whispered, feeling the full weight of that hour, that year, that long trail of events . . . the history behind it all . . . and hungering for a certainty that I knew I would never find.

I looked up at the painting again - Daddy's golden cowboy - and realized something that I should have figured out before.

There was someone who would know what I needed to find out.

In the morning - very early morning - I would make the call. No worries about phoning too early and disturbing her sleep. Grace Twist was the wife of a Wyoming rancher; staying in bed past sunrise would be considered unforgivable sloth in her reality.

My grandmother would be able to give me my answers.

I went to bed then, with Tinker in her customary place, draped over my feet. The rain continued to roar, and I refused to think about the new grave and the damage that the downpour might do to it.

My mother was not really there anyway; I knew that.

My father had given me that assurance, four years after he died.

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