Bending the Iron - 10. Chapter 10

By mid-November, there was no beauty left in Hickory. Only the old oaks still held their leaves—brown, withered husks that rustled in the wind. The rest of the trees were bare sticks pointing to a perpetually gray sky. The rain turned cold and biting, two or three degrees shy of being able to crystallize into snowflakes. Instead of covering the landscape in a white blanket, it turned roads into rivers and unpaved surfaces into mud puddles.

He got regular views of the outside world these days. The “on this side” people had a break room with windows. Best that Michael could tell, the large panes of dirty glass did little except give his coworkers something to look at besides each other. Little conversation happened that didn’t relate to work. In that regard, the “on this side” people reminded him uncomfortably of robots.

His transition hadn’t gone smoothly, and the distrusting looks and whispered remarks were taking their toll. Michael had expected such behavior from the hourly workers. But he got it from his new peers as well. He’d received a cold welcome, although cracks were starting to form in the ice. Mary Ann, the woman whose cubicle abutted his, had smiled at him the day before. Michael had cherished it the way a starving dog would hoard a bone.

Rules weren’t as stringent, so when the sky turned gray and the air took on a chill dampness, Michael knew snow was on the way without even having to check the forecast. He gathered his jacket and keys twenty minutes early and knocked on Ed’s door on the way out. “See you tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” Ed replied, barely lifting his head from the stack of papers in front of him.

Tomorrow. Michael could hardly wait.

He beat the worst of the snow home by minutes. Sitting in the driveway with the engine still purring, he frowned at the thick flakes pouring from the sky. He hoped Pete wasn’t at the museum today. A trip to town and back later wouldn’t be any fun, even with his truck’s rugged snow tires.

“Grandpap?” he called, stomping his boots free of muck on the mat that lay just inside the front door. He’d half expected to hear nothing, so his grandfather’s weak reply threw him off balance, literally. He tipped against the wall while wrestling with one stubborn boot.

“Michael?” Pete called again. “In here.”

Michael turned to follow the voice into the living room and stopped short. At the foot of the stairs lay a crumpled cardboard box, photo albums and loose pictures strewn around it. Near the baseboard on the third riser, the drywall was punched inward, long cracks radiating from the three-inch hole.

Michael skidded over the pictures in his rush to get through the doorway into the living room. “Grandpap!”

“I’m fine. Don’t panic.” Pete waved a dismissive hand at the mess at the bottom of the stairs, just visible through the doorway. “Tripped coming down from the attic.”

Michael took in the scene, but had trouble making heads or tails of it. Several boxes were stacked haphazardly around the couch, the contents—mostly letters, documents and pictures—covering the coffee table and the cushions beside him. Pete sat slumped to one side, left elbow cradled in his opposite hand. He tipped his chin in greeting.

“Jesus.” Michael ran a hand over his face and stepped over the boxes, crouching next to Pete. “You scared the shit out of me.” He eyed the makeshift icepack pressed to his grandfather’s arm. “Are you okay?”

“Said I was, didn’t I?”

“What the hell happened?”

“Told you. Missed a step coming down with the last box.”

Michael ignored the condescending tone, narrowing in on the slight wobble in Pete’s voice. “Are you in pain?”

“Nah. Just sore. Now stop fussing.”

Stop fussing? Not likely. “The elbow-shaped hole in the wall makes sense now.”

“Stop treating me like a baby and come look at this.” Pete scooted over with a slight grimace, rearranging the icepack under a throw pillow. He handed Michael a tattered leather album. Obediently, Michael sat and opened it.

The first page held an 8x10 shot of Michael in his high school football uniform. Down on one knee, ball tucked under his left arm, he looked impossibly young. “Where the hell did you find these?” he asked with a laugh.

“In the attic. I’ve been cleaning it out. Most of it’s junk. Hard to believe we ever saved it on purpose. But there’s important stuff too. Your mother’s things from when she was little. Pictures of you like this one. He placed a gnarled finger against Michael’s grainy, toothy grin. “I remember when this picture was taken. The photographer said ‘Smile’...and you did.” He huffed. “There were times I thought you’d never smile again.”

In the months after his parents’ death, Michael had often thought the same. He’d recovered in some ways. Time ensured that. But in others he was the same scared and lonely teenager he’d been the first year he’d come to live with his grandfather, uncertain of what the old man thought of having such a responsibility thrust upon him so late in life.

But Pete had never made him feel anything less than loved those first months. And even after the truth of Michael’s sexuality had come between them, he hadn’t been cruel or neglectful. Just distant. In a way, that had hurt more.

“Hey, Paps?” Michael closed the album rather than turn the page. “You ever think about going back and doing things differently?”

He felt Pete’s gaze on him. Watchful. “What’s wrong, Mikey?”

Too astute. Michael kept forgetting Pete wasn’t seeing the world through a fog of liquor these days. “Nothing. Never mind.”

Pete grunted, leaning to pull another stack of loose photographs from the box. “Haven’t seen you around the museum lately.”

“I know.” Thinking about it brought on a stabbing pain when he tried to breathe. Two weeks hadn’t put the slightest dent in the ache. He missed Eric all the time. When the hell was it going to get easier?

“You and Eric have a disagreement?”

Jarred from his thoughts, Michael shot Pete a startled look. “Is that what he said?”

“He didn’t say shit.” Lip curling, Pete tossed the pictures onto the cushion beside him and reached for more. “He’s more tight-lipped than you, if such a thing’s possible.”

Curious. He hadn’t expected Eric to pour his heart out to the old guy, but he wasn’t the sort to dodge a direct question. Since it didn’t matter anymore, Michael shrugged and told Pete the truth. “He wanted me to apply to some of the universities down in the city. You know, the ones I was interested in before. Think about a career...or something.”

“Architecture?”

Struck dumb, Michael nodded. Pete turned so they were facing each other. “I’m not so old or pickled that I’ve forgotten what interests you.”

Oh, there were so many different directions to go with those words. Throat tight, Michael nodded. “Architecture, that’s right. But I’m not going to do it.”

“Too much money?”

As an excuse, it walked the line of truthfulness. “Sort of.”

“So not too much money,” Pete guessed correctly. “You just think I won’t be able to take care of myself while you’re gone.”

There was proof of that scattered all over the floor at the bottom of the stairs. “I couldn’t commute. Not every day. You’d be alone too much.”

“I’m not a helpless child, Michael.”

It was more than that. But trying to convey his reasons without sounding whiny or weak seemed impossible. He let his gaze wander the room, taking in the cracked plaster, the tiny water stain in the corner by the window, and felt the weight of every timber and shingle. The press wasn’t completely physical. History tethered him here too.

“I went downtown the other day,” he heard himself say. “Walked around campus a bit.” Again, he felt Pete’s eyes drilling into him. “It’s a different life. Unreal. Unrealistic. Let’s face it. High school was a long time ago. And I wasn’t a genius then.”

“You think you’re not smart enough? Bullshit. You’re as sharp as a whip.” Pete pushed to his feet, swaying slightly. He jerked away when Michael tried to steady him. “I didn’t think my daughter raised a quitter.”

“She didn’t. She raised a pragmatist.”

“Pragmatist,” Pete muttered in the same tone he normally reserved for words such as Democrat. “What does Eric think about your decision?”

That hurt. So now Eric’s opinion mattered more than his? “Why the hell should that make a difference?”

Pete’s pitying look made Michael shrink into the sofa cushions like a recalcitrant ten-year-old. “It makes a difference to you, son.”

Which was exactly what Eric had been saying. Pete and Eric needed to take their scary psychic sideshow on the road. Surrendering, Michael said, “He thinks I shouldn’t give up on the idea. Wants me to reconsider.”

Pete laughed, rocking back on his heels enough that he stumbled backward a step. “Wonder if he knows just how much considering you’ve done over the past eight years. What? You think I didn’t know?”

No. Michael truly hadn’t.

Grumbling, Pete inspected his elbow, turning his arm this way and that while he squinted at the reddened skin. He tossed the icepack on the table. “I don’t understand why this is such a hard decision for you.”

He needed to spell it out? “I’d have to leave Hickory.”

“Don’t use me as an excuse, boy.”

“It’s not an excuse,” Michael blurted. “I don’t like the idea of leaving you so far out of town in this place. Look what happened today. What if you fell and broke your arm. Or your leg? Or your neck, for God’s sake? You’d be all alone.”

“And what if I weren’t?”

Michael stared at him.

“I’ve been thinking about selling it. Believe it or not, there’s been a couple people asking to buy it. They say it’s got character.” Pete doubled over in wheezing laughter.

It did. More than the average Pennsylvania farmhouse, with its steep gables, covered porches, and several chimneys. Character didn’t go too far when the roof was leaking in mid-February, though. Sometimes old was just that: old. “You think it would sell?”

“You betcha.”

Time to cut to the chase. “And...you’d sell it?”

“Yep. Plenty of places in town I could buy. Or even rent. Places a lot smaller and easier to take care of.

”Maybe, but they were still talking about the house Pete had raised his family in. “Wouldn’t you miss it?”

“Yes,” Pete said solemnly. “I would. Just like I’d miss you if you left, but I think it’s the right decision.” He sniffed, then dug a hankie out of his pocket to wipe his nose. “This isn’t the life your parents wanted for you, I know that. I talked to them often enough about it before they died.”

Michael swallowed. “Really?”

“And after graduation, you didn’t owe it to me to stay, but you did anyway. It made me ashamed.” He cleared his throat and straightened. “The way I acted...”

Michael stood to grip his shoulder. “Paps—”

“So if you’re wanting my blessing or approval or whatever it is you think you need, you’ve got it.” He raised watery eyes to Michael’s face. “Both of you.”

Awash in too many emotions to speak, Michael stood silently, and Pete stayed quiet as well, hankie clutched in his fist. After a while, he shoved it back in his pocket and went to clean up the mess at the foot of the stairs.

Pensive and a bit breathless, Michael joined him.

* * *

The Cathedral of Learning was Michael’s fairy-tale castle. And the Commons Room, the Cathedral’s fifteenth-century English Gothic-style hall, was his royal audience chamber. Four stories tall, its walls were lined with Indiana limestone and ornate ironwork. Dozens of study tables dotted the slate floor. Yet for all its enormity and the many students congregating there, it was quiet. Homey. Yellow flames shifted and licked in the enormous fireplace, throwing heat into the chilly space. Michael found an empty table, slid into one of the wide-backed wooden chairs, and let his gaze wander over the exquisite arches that dominated the room.

Today, expectation wasn’t tying his stomach in knots. He felt none of the burden he’d been carrying on his last visit to the university. Those things had slipped away since his talk with Pete the week before. More of a tourist this time around, he tilted his head back and absorbed the vast space for what it represented architecturally, instead of what it meant for him personally.

“You’re back.” A light brown briefcase landed on the table next to him. Blinking free of his thoughts, Michael glanced up. “I remember you,” the man said.

Michael remembered him too. The gentleman from outside the student union. “Hello again,” he said, standing. “Do you work at the university?”

“I teach here, which many days feels more like work than it should. But nothing in life is ever perfect, is it?”

Smiling, the man gestured upward at the Gothic arches. “What do you think?”

“Amazing,” Michael admitted, voice gruff. “I can’t really put how I feel about it into words.”

The man’s eyes glinted with pleasure. “How refreshing to hear true awe in a young person’s voice. So often these days it’s impossible to impress any of you.” He took up his briefcase, which looked stuffed full of more papers than before, and offered Michael his hand. “No need to ask your course of study. It’s written all over your face.”

Michael drew his hand back slowly. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Don’t you?” The man glanced to his left, and Michael followed his gaze to the large gates leading to the elevators. Above the wrought iron, two lines of poetry were inscribed: Here is eternal spring; for you the very stars of heaven are new. “The way you look at buildings. As though you’re appreciating a fine wine. Or trying to work a complicated puzzle. Or, from what I’ve noticed, both of those things at the same time.” He rolled his eyes toward Michael, a half smile on his face. “I’ve seen that look before.”

“Where?”

“In the mirror.” Chuckling, the man tucked his case under his arm and walked away, exiting as mysteriously as he had the first time they’d met.

Michael dropped back into his seat, turning the words over and over in his head. They followed him throughout the morning as he wandered the public areas of the Cathedral. They haunted him throughout the long drive up the interstate, past the Hickory Hotel and the Train Museum. They lingered even as he arrived home, the house a soft glow in the dark gray afternoon, Pete’s shadow moving steadily back and forth behind the living room curtains.

He found Eric’s folder exactly where he’d left it, stuffed behind the rear seat. A black grease stain smudged one side, and it was ripped along one corner, but the papers inside were pristine. His dream was intact.

If only he could say the same for his heart.