Love Letters From the Grave(4)

Charlie could see Wendell now, carrying out his favorite past-time of doing nothing-in-particular-apart-from-no-good. Right at that moment, as Charlie raced between his chores around the farm and school, where he was excelling right now, and the church which had been a haven for his whole life, it irked him just a tiny bit to see that Wendell was back, stretched out on the veranda of his parents’ house as if he owned it.

‘Home from your travels, Wendell?’ he called, panting only a little as he ran toward the bigger house in the corner of the farm, by the county road.

Wendell didn’t comment. He never did comment when anyone asked where he’d been on his little trips away. He ran off, upset his parents, came back, upset his parents. The pattern was always the same, until the day they’d told him to leave for good until he could sort himself out. Presumably, he’d done some sorting.

Wendell simply stared at him with narrowed eyes, then nodded. ‘Hey, Charlie,’ he called after a moment. ‘What are you running for?’

‘I’ve got news!’

Charlie held up his school books in explanation, even though that wouldn’t mean much to the older boy. School and Wendell hadn’t really agreed with each other, once he’d got in with the wrong crowd and stopped being the model student he used to be.

‘We should go for a drive later. Celebrate your good news,’ shouted Wendell.

Charlie grinned as he skidded toward the back door. That might even be fun. Heck, any kind of driving was fun, and the faster the better, though his recent racing attempts had brought attention from law-enforcement officers and, even worse, from their neighbors, who began to lodge complaints to his parents that he was endangering children and livestock with his fast driving. Charlie knew they were right, and vowed that he would be extra careful to slow down to a safe speed when he spotted youngsters or animals, or passed through areas where they would most likely to be on the road.

But a quiet lane, a backroad, with Wendell urging him on – well, that could be arranged.

The screen door banged behind him as he ran into the house. ‘Mom, Dad! Are you here? I’ve got something to tell you!’

His mother appeared from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. ‘Goodness, that sounds exciting. Your father is fixing the tractor. Why don’t you go and help him?’

‘Well, I am better with machinery than he is,’ said Charlie with a cheeky grin.

‘I meant so that you could tell him your news first.’ As hard as his mother tried to sound affronted, she couldn’t hide her smile. ‘Go on, off with you.’

‘Don’t you want to know what it is?’

‘I’ll hear it later.’

Grabbing an apple in the orchard, Charlie set off at a trot again, wending his way across the farm to the tractor shed from where the sounds of clanging metal and muffled curses were emanating.

‘Dad, I have something to tell you,’ he cried triumphantly.

‘You crashed into something?’ Wielding a large wrench, Charlie’s father was striking half-heartedly at a bent fender in an attempt to stop it slicing through the tire.

Charlie took the wrench off him. ‘No; no crashing involved,’ he said, levering the fender toward him rather than driving it further toward the rubber tire as his father had been doing. ‘Mr Carter, the farm advisor, has recommended to the school that I take the 4-H program. It’ll help me with my university application so I can go ahead and get my science degree.’

‘And what are you going to do with that?’

‘I’ll be a new kind of farmer, working with the university agricultural experiment station, and …’ He thwacked the very end of the fender with the wrench, and it curled obediently into place. ‘… I’ll be able to do research and development right here on the farm.’

His father watched him carefully as Charlie tweaked the plugs and then turned the ignition on. The tractor burst into life and moved forward easily, now that its tire was free from impending death.

‘I don’t know, Charlie boy,’ he said eventually. ‘What happened to being a priest?’

That had been Charlie’s calling for the previous few years.

‘I can still love the Lord and work His land,’ said Charlie. ‘I know I’ve spent all these years studying with Father Patton at the church and doing extra lessons with the nuns at school, and I won’t stop doing that. But this way I can be home, and help out with the farm, and even grow it toward greater things.’

‘That’s a lot of responsibility for a fifteen-year old, son,’ said his father solemnly. ‘You do so much around the farm and the church already, taking care of the family and all as well as your school work. Are you sure you can fit anything else in?’

Charlie held the wrench out beseechingly, like some kind of communion offering. ‘I’m sure I can. I mean, Mr Carter wouldn’t have recommended me for the program if he didn’t think I could do it.’

His father drew in an enormous breath, as if pondering the puzzles of the universe. Then he winked.

‘Well, I guess I wouldn’t have recommended the 4-H to Mr Carter in the first place if I didn’t think you could manage,’ he said. ‘We’re very proud of you, Charlie boy, and I think it’s an opportunity you can’t miss.’

Charlie laughed, pumping his father’s outstretched hand. ‘Thank you!’