Beyond the Point(11)
Exhausted and sweating, Avery walked toward the mailbox, just in case. Inside, there was a stack of mail: a circular of flimsy coupons, a pink envelope with the words Final Notice printed on top, a People magazine, and a large manila envelope with West Point’s gold crest glittering in the top left corner.
“Dad!” she shouted, ripping through the paper. “Dad!”
Her father stepped back onto the porch. The rest of the mail fell to the ground. Avery held her breath, frantically opening the leather-bound announcement.
“I got in,” she mumbled to herself. Then, raising her eyes to her father, she screamed, “I got in!”
3
Summer 2000 // Austin, Texas
After dinner, they sat on the back porch and waited for pie.
There was always pie.
Hannah Speer leaned her head back and breathed in the smells of the night. This was her very last dinner at her grandparents’ ranch and she wanted to take it all in. Barbecue ribs, smoked on her grandfather’s grill, had left a sticky brown residue under her nails. A light lemon-garlic dressing had been slicked across baby spinach and chard, the bowl dusted with Parmesan cheese. Soft salted butter had been spread on crusty homemade baguettes. Hannah had eaten three slices before her grandmother warned her to save room. It was a perfect meal, washed down with sweet tea, served on toile china. Every bite closer to her last.
Tomorrow, an airplane would transport her family from Texas to New York and time would speed up, racing toward West Point’s Reception Day for the incoming class of 2004. Her duffel bag waited on her bedroom floor, stuffed tightly with the things she’d been instructed to pack: underwear, socks, an assortment of first aid gear, a pair of brand-new leather combat boots. Her grandfather had explained how to mold them to her feet: “Lace them up, wear them in the shower, and don’t take them off until they’re bone dry,” he’d told her. Hannah had spent the day walking around her house in a pink robe and combat boots. She hated to imagine having blisters all summer, just because she didn’t break the boots in correctly.
Blisters and combat boots were still two days away. At the moment, the fertile smell of cow manure wafted in from the fields. Above her, the porch’s tin roof reflected a string of twinkle lights, and just beyond the roof, a dark sky hovered over the pasture. The stars looked like the scene at a jewelry shop: tiny diamonds strewn across black velvet. Staring at this view, Hannah couldn’t help but imagine a Creator who’d spread this tableau of jewels just for her. She gripped the cross pendant on her neck and slid it back and forth along its chain, her own secret signal, a prayer of thanks. Life was so beautiful, so vast.
Lowering her eyes from the sky, Hannah watched her grandfather walk up from the yard. Gates Speer was a young-looking sixty-seven, with a full head of white hair and tan skin that had held up to age. He pinched a piece of grass between his fingers, then let it fall to the ground.
Though he’d lived on the ranch full-time for the last five years, he still carried himself like he was walking through the halls of the Pentagon. Shoulders back, chin up. Hannah wondered if U.S. Army generals ever lost their military bearing. She imagined that even when they buried her grandfather someday, his muscles would be clenched. But underneath that rigid exterior, General Speer had a softness that few outside of his family had ever seen. Hannah knew she was one of the lucky ones.
He took a seat on the porch swing next to her, slid his arm around her shoulders. His scent was a mix of Old Spice and fresh-cut grass, the way a man was supposed to smell. But her grandfather wasn’t a cowboy. He didn’t have dirt under his nails or an unkempt shirt. “I judge a man by three things,” General Speer often said. “His clothes, his posture, and his handshake.”
If she wanted to see someone lackadaisical about his appearance, Hannah only needed to look a few inches over, to her father, Bill. He sat in a rocking chair and alternated between picking his teeth, scratching at his mustache, and adjusting the ball cap on his head. That’s why Hannah had never understood the phrase “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” It was a terrible analogy. Couldn’t people see that a tree and an apple are nothing alike? Of course one came from the other, but one was round and sweet, and the other was tall and stoic. She tried to imagine the tree and the apple having a conversation. It would probably go about the same way as tonight’s chat between General Speer and his son.
“Goats would do it,” her father was saying. “Six or seven. You wouldn’t have to mow ever again.”
“Well, I like mowing,” her grandfather replied. “I like making all those straight lines. Plus, if I had goats then I’d have to take care of the goats. There are no shortcuts. You’re gonna work hard, one way or another.”
Hannah’s sister, Emily, snorted a laugh. She was swaying on a swing on the opposite side of the porch next to their mother, Lynn. When they stood side by side, the three Speer women looked like triplets. Lynn appeared only slightly older than her daughters, a few wrinkles at her eyes. Emily’s hair was lighter than Hannah’s dirty blond. They all had sky-blue eyes, dimples, and sharp chins.
“I bet if Grandpa had goats, he’d end up chloroforming them all,” Emily said, her voice flat.
The whole family broke into laughter, including the general.
At that moment, Hannah’s grandmother emerged from the kitchen holding a pie plate and a ceramic pitcher.