Miriam looked at him. “What does he do now?”
I shook my head, staring at his face. “I’m not sure.”
“Is he married?”
“No one knows,” I said, taking the picture and wiping the dust off with my sleeve. “He left home when he was seventeen, right before his father died, and we haven’t seen him since.”
Miriam was speechless. I could see the wheels turning in her head. All this time, and we knew so little about each other. “Why, Gloria?”
I poured another cup of hot water over a fresh tea bag and fetched a cup for Miriam. “So many reasons, I guess. He hated school and did poorly in it. Of course, we said he had to go to school and he hated it even more. Daniel also struggled through every subject, but he liked school and all my kids got involved in sports and music, but Matt was just so different. He could never find a place for himself at school, or anywhere else for that matter. If there was a rule he was set on breaking it, and if we told him he had to do something he did the opposite. Seems everything was an effort for him.” I put the cup of tea in front of Miriam, along with cream and sugar. “For years after he left, I just kept replaying everything over and over in my mind, wondering what Walt and I had done wrong, what we should have done differently, because we made mistakes. I know we did.” I reached for a napkin in the middle of the table and handed it to Miriam. “But I know I made so many more than Walt. When he got sick I focused all my energy on him; I was so involved with every breath, that I couldn’t pay attention to…” I stopped. “I don’t know. If I could go back. We always say that, don’t we?”
Miriam rested her chin in her hand, shaking her head. “You can raise all your children in the same house, with the same rules, the same parents, the same patterns, but they all come away with a different outlook. My own two did. Gretchen calls all the time. Jerrod never has time. Gretchen is full of life. Jerrod can suck the life out of a room in a matter of minutes.”
I propped my elbows up on the table, holding the cup. “I had a baby girl when Matthew was ten, and he was so excited, but we knew that Anna was very sick and the doctors didn’t give us any hope. Every day Matt prayed for his sister and Walt and I tried to explain that sometimes people don’t get well, but he never believed it. He never believed that God would allow a child to die. But she did, and something changed in him.”
“Was he angry?”
“It wasn’t anger but disappointment, I think. He was disappointed in God and in the rest of us. Matthew was never mouthy to us. He was quiet, which in a lot of ways was worse. When Walt got sick, Matt just turned everything inward. Couldn’t take it. Walter was sick for only about six weeks. That’s it. Matt ran off two weeks before Walt died. The thought of his father dying was just more than he could handle. I was a mess and Walt kept saying, ‘He’ll be back, Gloria. He’ll come home. I’m praying that God won’t let him rest until he comes home.’” I ran my hand back and forth over the notebook. “Even as he was dying, Walt was the strong one.”
I opened the notebook. “This was Matthew’s journal. I didn’t even know he had been keeping a journal over the years, but there are pages and pages of his thoughts in here.” I turned to a page and started reading. “Today some doctors told Dad that he’s sick. He and Mom have been quiet all day.” I flipped the page. “Dad is dying and nobody’s doing anything about it. He and Mom went to some office today and made sure the will was in place and insurance was taken care of. In the meantime, while they’re filling out paperwork, Dad keeps dying.” I sipped some tea and cleared my throat, turning the page. “I’m watching Mom love Dad right now. She’s curled up next to him on the couch and holding his hand.” My throat tightened and a tear rolled down my cheek; I flicked it away with my finger. I took a moment, finding my voice. “Dad was in bed all day today. I watched Mom take care of him and she talked to him like it was just a regular day, but her face is sad. He reached for her hand and she sat on the edge of the bed looking at him. I think she’s memorizing his face now.” I covered my mouth and paused. Miriam sat in the silence, waiting. “I can’t watch Dad die anymore. This shouldn’t happen to him or Mom. He always had faith, but how is that helping him now? God doesn’t care. I’m not even sure God knows what’s happening down here. If he did he’d step in a lot more and help people.” I closed the notebook, wiping my nose. “And that was his last entry.”