Page 80 of Good Dirt

Words

W ords have power. So does the absence of words. Sometimes, when people choose not to speak, their silence can block out the sun. Take, for instance, Henry Pepper, who has caused more hurt than he’d intended because he’d thought it would be worse to speak up than not. Worse to point a questioning finger at someone close to his father than to get to the bottom of an uncomfortable question.

When Henry returned to Connecticut, he decided to speak with his father about what had set him off the previous year, on the eve of his wedding to Ebby. His father found Henry’s concerns about what had happened to the Freemans’ jar to be so preposterous that he refused to talk about them. So Henry, now veering into what felt like recklessness, went directly to the source, his father’s friend Harris. But unlike Henry’s dad, Harris wasn’t bothered at all.

“Shit, me and my big mouth,” Harris said. “I wasn’t thinking. I can see why you would have been concerned, Henry. I knew about the jar because Ed Freeman told me about it. He needed some advice. We go way back, you know that.”

Henry shook his head and frowned.

“Sure you do. We’re old college buddies. Studied math together. Then we reconnected in Connecticut. Anyway, the whole jar business really isn’t mine to discuss. I shouldn’t have made that comment that afternoon. Does Ed Freeman know you’re here?”

“Ebby’s father?” Henry said. “I haven’t seen him, you know, not since the whole wedding mess.”

“Yup, I figured. I’ve known you since you were yea high, Henry. I think it’s time you got your butt over there.”

“I don’t think that’s up to me, Harris. I don’t think Ed Freeman is going to want to see me.”

“This is exactly what I’m talking about, Henry. This isn’t about what Ed Freeman wants. This is about what you should be doing. This is about you and how, for whatever reason, you were willing to let go of your fiancée there. You are the one who chose to handle things the way you did. Your dad would be pissed if he heard me saying this, but your parents let you get away with this. You think you can just pull a stunt like that wedding-day thing and still get to stay in your comfort zone?”

Henry looks away.

“Okay, lots of people do, I’ll give you that. But come on, Henry. You’re better than that.”

At this point, Harris, taller and larger than Henry by quite a bit, stood up.

“You should have asked me, right then and there. And even if you didn’t, you should have gone and talked to that girl. Told her everything, or anything at all. Whatever. Even if there was other shit going on. Even if you had other reasons for ditching the wedding, you should’ve talked to her. How did you not see that?”

After speaking with Harris, Henry sat outside in his car, thinking. Then he pulled out of Harris’s driveway and drove over to the Freemans’ place, where Soh Freeman, looking out a window, saw him pull up to the house. Before Henry could get to the front door, Soh stepped outside. Just as Henry was thinking how relieved he was that he wouldn’t have to knock, Soh walked straight over to him and slapped him in the face.