Showers in Season (31 page)

While Tory and the children were poring over his scrapbook and his old pictures, Barry went outside to sit with Nathan. It was getting cool, and his mother had put a sweater on his brother. She had buttoned it all the way to the neck, and Barry realized that it might be too tight at his throat.

“She’s got you bundled up here, doesn’t she, Nathan?” He unbuttoned the top two buttons, giving Nathan some relief. “So did you get everything you wanted for Christmas?”

Nathan was whistling “Silver Bells,” the last song playing on the tape his mother had put on during dinner. He had sat at the table with them, his wheelchair pulled up to a plate, complete with a place setting she knew he wouldn’t use. He had stared at a place on the wall and whistled along with the tape.

Now, Barry pulled a chair up next to his brother and sat down. He patted his arm. “It’s good to see you, man.” He realized the peace he felt when he was sitting next to his brother.
There was no pressure, no need to be clever or funny. With Nathan, he had always been able to be himself, exactly as he was. Nothing more, nothing less.

“Remember how we used to play?” Barry asked. He pictured his brother answering. He always had, though Nathan just stared straight ahead. Instead of reminding Nathan of the game they used to play, he started whistling the tune to “Away in a Manger.” In just a couple of beats, Nathan had changed tunes and was whistling along with him. They whistled several verses of the same song, and finally Barry changed the tune to “We Three Kings.” Nathan switched gears again.

He could hear the energy and the vibrancy in Nathan’s whistle, could almost sense an invisible smile carrying out over the notes as Barry whistled with him. It was the only thing the two brothers had ever been able to do together, yet there had been times when it had been enough.

He changed the tune to “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire,” and Nathan picked up the tune again. Barry’s eyes grinned as he whistled with his brother in perfect unison.

When Tory finished reading the story, she went looking for her husband. She found him in the prayer garden with Nathan. Through the window, she saw them sitting side by side, and wondered why Barry had been out there so long.

Quietly she opened the back door and stepped out onto the patio. She wasn’t surprised to hear the whistling, but this time it wasn’t just Nathan. Barry was whistling, too, in perfect unison with his brother, so precisely and perfectly, that one might have thought they had rehearsed for many years.

Stricken, she realized they probably had.

She stood just outside the door, not willing to disturb them, listening to the moving sound as tears came to her eyes. Then Barry turned and winked at her as he whistled, and nodded for her to come closer.

She stepped slowly up to him, and he quickly changed the tune to “Jingle Bells.” Nathan was quick to follow.

Barry started laughing at the look on her face, and finally stopped whistling. Nathan kept going. “It’s a game we used to play,” he said. “No matter what I ever changed the tune to, Nathan could whistle it all the way through.”

“He’d whistle with you?” she asked.

“Sure,” Barry said. “In perfect rhythm. If I slow the tempo, he slows down, too. It’s the only way I’ve ever been able to communicate with him.”

She studied her brother-in-law. “Fascinating,” she whispered.

“There’s a lot about Nathan that’s fascinating. When I get to heaven, the first questions I’m going to ask will have to do with Nathan.”

“Maybe you won’t have to ask,” she said with a smile. “If he beats you there, he can tell you everything himself.”

Barry leaned forward, looking his brother in the face. The whistled tune of “Jingle Bells” sounded as festive as any tape she’d heard that day. “Maybe that’s what it’s about,” he said, his face sobering.

“What?” she asked.

“Heaven,” he said. “Maybe even if there isn’t a contribution here, maybe there’s something later. Maybe life on this earth is nothing more than a blip in God’s eternity. Maybe in heaven we’ll hardly even remember that Nathan wasn’t perfect here. Maybe he’ll have a special job, and contribute more than you and I ever dreamed.”

She thought that over as Barry got up and got her a chair. Barry started whistling “Silent Night,” and Nathan changed songs.

Tory sat down. “I found this,” she said, handing Barry the short story. “It was in an old scrapbook.”

He took it from her hands and unfolded it. He began to laugh. “Oh, no, that awful story I wrote about switching brains.”

“You gave him half of yours,” she said. “Half your intelligence so he could be normal.”

He chuckled. “It was a nice thought,” he said. “Too bad there’s never been the technology.”

She looked down at the yellowed pages, and more than she’d ever known anything in her life, she knew that if the technology
had
been developed, Barry would have easily given his brain to his brother. Like the whistling, this knowledge changed things somehow.

She watched as he moved his chair in front of Nathan and pressed his forehead against his, trying to get him to look him in the eye. Nathan still seemed vacant, but he kept whistling. Barry started “Oh, Holy Night,” and Nathan switched again.

As the two men whistled, face-to-face, Tory thought it was the most beautiful sound she had ever heard. She felt that admiration, that lost respect, seeping back into her heart, and she began to understand a little of what Barry had experienced earlier. Could it be that it hadn’t been a lack of love for his child that had prompted his decisions? Could it be that his ideas, though misguided, were really prompted by lifelong grief over his own brother’s plight?

Later that night when the children had fallen asleep on the floor in front of the television, the adults went back out to the prayer garden. Betty sat on the swing facing them. “Now that the shock is gone,” she said, “and I’ve gotten used to seeing Tory pregnant today, why don’t we talk about this some more?”

Barry sobered and looked out across the lawn. “Mom, I love you and I love Nathan, and I don’t want to hurt you for anything in the world. And I know it’s wrong. But I’ve had a real hard time picturing us having a baby who would never contribute anything.”

“Oh, but everybody contributes something,” Betty said.

“What could Nathan possibly contribute?” he asked. “I mean, I know that I feel good when I’m around him. And I know that he’s been an anchor for you, and I know that you’ve loved him and cared for him all these years. But I can’t help thinking that he’s trapped in there somewhere, and he can’t get out. And he can’t do any of the things he might have had the potential to do, if something hadn’t gone terribly wrong.”

His mother got to her feet slowly, dusted off the back of her pants, and reached for her son’s hand. “Come with me, Barry. There’s somebody I want you to meet.”

“Who, Mom?” he asked, getting up.

She looked down at Tory. “Would you keep an eye on Nathan for me, Tory? Barry and I are going to go next door for a second.”

“Next door?” he asked. “Why?”

“I told you,” she said. “There’s somebody over there I want you to meet.”

She walked him out the front door, then hooked her arm through his and led him to the front door of the neighbor next door. The house was lit up and the porch light was on, almost as if they were expected. His mother knocked on the door. “Millie, are you there?”

A little, decrepit old woman came to the door in her robe. She opened it and peered out with kind eyes. “Come in! Come in! What a joy! Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas to you,” Betty said, hugging the woman. “Millie, I want you to meet my son, Barry.”

“What a wonderful young man,” the woman said, shaking his hand. “I’ve been out on my patio listening to you and your brother whistle.”

He lifted his eyebrows. “You could hear us over here?”

“Of course,” she said. “It’s one of my favorite things. I listen to Nathan all the time. Whenever I’m lonely I go sit out on my back patio. It’s been a real treat hearing all those Christmas tunes.”

Barry looked at his mother. “I had no idea anyone else could hear. I’m really sorry.”

“No, no. Don’t apologize. Please sit down,” she said, and she pulled them in and led them to an old Victorian couch in a parlor like something right out of the twenties.

Betty sat next to the old woman. “Millie, I want you to do me a favor and tell Barry how you came to know the Lord.”

The woman threw her arthritic hands into the air. “What a wonderful story,” she said. “Your mother hasn’t told you?”

He glanced at his mother, wondering what she was up to. “I haven’t seen her much in the last few months,” he said.

“He hasn’t heard,” Betty told her.

Millie’s eyes glowed with joy, and he could tell that whatever the story was, it meant a lot to her. “Well, you may not know this, but my dear husband of sixty years passed away last July. I thought I would just die.”

Barry leaned forward. “I’m so sorry. Then this was your first Christmas without him?”

The woman nodded, but the look on her face was anything but grief-stricken. “I had a very hard time. Mourned for months, and one night I just got to the point that I wanted to die. I had some sleeping pills that had belonged to Samuel, and I gathered them all up and figured out that it was probably enough to end it all peacefully.”

His mouth came open. “You were going to kill yourself?”

Tears came to her big eyes. “And I decided that I didn’t want my children to find me in the house, because I wanted them to feel free to come live here if they ever wanted, and I didn’t want it to have that stigma. So I took the pills and I got a big glass of iced tea and I went out back on the patio. I started rocking and drinking my tea and considering those pills.”

Barry was riveted. He kept his eyes locked on the woman.

“And then I heard the whistling.”

“Nathan’s whistling?”

“Yes. It was a Sunday, and your mother had taken him to church earlier. He was whistling ‘In the Garden.’” She smiled and looked at Betty, her bright eyes dancing. Then she began to sing. “And he walks with me and he talks with me, and he tells me I am his own. And the joy we share, as we tarry there, none other has ever known.” She smiled. “I knew the song when I was a little girl, but I had forgotten. You see, I hadn’t been to church in a very long time, and as Nathan whistled that song, I started thinking that before I took those pills, I should try just once going back to church, to see if I could get rid of that miserable loneliness. That night was the first time I went back to church in twenty years.”

Barry’s eyes widened. “You’re kidding me.”

“Oh, no. I wouldn’t kid about a thing like this.” She clapped her gnarled hands together. “And I found such warmth there. There were people my age and they invited me to sing in the senior adult choir, and they made me a soloist.” She threw her hands over her heart in a flourish. “Can you imagine? They showed me true, genuine love. Within a week, I had accepted Christ, and my whole life changed.” Beaming, she clapped her hands as if she couldn’t believe her fortune. “And then we started traveling and we went to Branson, and oh, I just had a glorious time. And my life has been full and busy ever since. Why, even today, this first Christmas without Samuel, I was too busy to get down. Some of us worked at the soup kitchen downtown, and we gave out food to the poor. It was just such a blessing.”

“You see,” Betty said to Barry, “you think your brother hasn’t contributed anything, that he doesn’t have a purpose. But you’re wrong.”

“I led three people to Christ today at that soup kitchen,” the woman said. “Now don’t you see that that’s Nathan’s fruit, too? If God hadn’t used his whistling to draw my heart to him, then I could have never led anyone else’s heart.”

Barry was stunned. In Nathan’s seemingly unproductive life, he had probably borne more fruit than Barry ever had. It was just what he needed to hear, the best Christmas present he could have had. He thanked Millie and hugged her.

When he had finished crying with his mother and thanking her for what she had shown him, he walked back out into the prayer garden where Tory was sitting in the rocking chair, soaking in the same peace that Nathan had given him all those years. Tory needed it, he thought. She’d had a rough few months. She hadn’t had much time to rest her emotions or her fears, but now she was leaning back, her eyes closed, as she rocked next to Nathan’s wheelchair. As he got closer, he saw that her hand was on Nathan’s arm. He didn’t think he had ever seen her touch him before.

Tory opened her eyes as Barry sat down on the other side of Nathan, pulled his chair up, and leaned in, pressing his forehead
against his brother’s face. He wondered if, on some level, Nathan could tell he’d been crying. “You’re quite a guy, aren’t you, Nathan? You have secrets.”

Nathan just kept whistling. Barry began to sing. “And he walks with me and he talks with me.” Nathan changed his tune and picked up “In the Garden.”

He felt Tory watching him cry with his head pressed against his brother’s forehead. “Tory, he’s probably responsible—directly or indirectly—for more people coming to Christ than I’ve ever been. Haven’t you, Nathan? We’re going to get to heaven and you’ll have those crowns lined up, and I’ll have some shrunken little baseball cap.”

He laughed softly through his tears, and started singing along with his brother again.

On the way home, as the children slept in the backseat, Barry reached across the seat to hold Tory’s hand. She unhooked her seat belt and scooted across to the middle of the seat. The gesture moved him to tears. It had been so long since she had been affectionate with him. He grabbed the middle belt, hooked it over her lap, then pulled her closer. She rested her head on his shoulder. It felt like old times, when she had admired and respected and loved him, when she had looked up to him as her protector. Now he felt like her protector again.

His tears rolled freely with the thought of the grace even she had given him, and unable to see through his tears, he pulled over to the side of the road. She looked expectantly up at him. He put his hand on her stomach again and felt the baby move, and realized that all through the day she had been feeling that evidence of the live baby inside of her, moving and bucking and flipping, reminding her that even though she wasn’t whole or perfect, she was still a child.

He pressed his head against hers, as he had done with Nathan, and she wiped his tears. “Can you ever forgive me for the last few months?” he asked.

“I’ve forgiven you. And the baby forgives you. You were wrong, but I think I understand why you were wrong.”

He pulled her into his arms. “Thank you for being the kind of mother who would fight to protect your baby,” he whispered. “I’m proud of you. Very, very proud. A year ago, I don’t know if you would have fought this hard, but I guess that’s God’s timing, isn’t it?”

She nodded, unable to speak.

“And if it takes the rest of my life, I’m going to restore your faith and respect in me.”

“It’s not going to take that long,” she whispered.

“How long, then?”

She smiled. “It happened a couple of hours ago,” she said, “when I read that story you had written. When I heard you and Nathan whistling. When I watched you talking to him.”

He tried to stop his tears. “I want the very best for our baby,” he said, “just like I wanted it for Nathan. I can’t stand not to have the best for them.”

“But we have to let God decide what’s best.”

“I know,” he said. “And tonight, he showed me that I can trust him with my child. He has things under control.”