Page 2 of The Messengers of Magic
The summer days were long and hot and his hands were perpetually stained with oil.
By the time fall was nearing, he was more than ready to leave, ready to head north, where the weather was cooler and a new life awaited him.
He had saved all but fifty dollars of what he needed for his first year’s tuition, and by the end of the month, he would have that and enough for a bus ticket.
After a long day in the garage, Pen walked home through a fine mist of rain.
The heat had been so relentless, one of those days when it was so hot that even the rain turned to steam before it hit the pavement.
Humidity clung to everything; the air was thick, heavy, sour with the scent of sweat and hot metal.
Fans buzzed from every window he passed, trying in vain to chase away the weight of the day.
By the time he reached his parents’ trailer, the sun was dipping low, and the night air finally descended, offering a slight reprieve from the sweltering heat.
Pen stepped into the tin-railed kitchen and found his mother preparing cold-cut sandwiches for his father and the boys, her hair piled in a high bun to keep her neck cool.
“Hi, honey. How was your day?” she inquired, just as she always did.
“Same old, same old,” Pen replied.
She called the younger boys in for dinner, and they gathered around the aluminum-rimmed table, eating in near silence.
Val and Will wolfed down their food and quickly returned to their game.
Dave, the next oldest after Pen, stayed behind, eager to talk with their father about the garage.
Fascinated by everything mechanical, he was fixing to walk in his father’s shoes someday.
Pen’s mother stood to clear the plates when suddenly her legs went limp, and down she went, crashing to the floor with force.
Pen sprang from his chair and rushed to his mother’s side, finding her unconscious on the linoleum of the cramped kitchen.
His father rose slowly and wandered over, squinting down at her.
“Damn woman passed out again. It’s the third time this week.”
“What?” Pen asked.
“She doesn’t drink enough water. I keep telling her, she needs to drink more water.”
Pen lifted his mother’s head and noticed a small drop of blood slipping from the corner of her mouth.
Her eyes started to flutter, and slowly, she began to come to.
With Pen’s help, she sat up, then let out a small, weak cough that sprayed a fine mist of blood across Pen’s shirt.
The red speckles stood in stark contrast against the pale blue cotton.
“Oh my God, Mom. We need to get you to a doctor,” Pen said, fear filling each word.
“I’ve already been to a doctor,” she replied with sorrow in her eyes as she placed her hand on his shoulder. “It’s my lungs.” A single tear ran down her cheek. Pen’s father turned without a word and went into the living room. He dropped into his chair and lit a cigarette.
“Cancer?” Pen was stunned and confused. He turned and yelled at his father. “How long have you known about this?”
“Since April,” his mother answered quietly, getting up off the kitchen floor.
Pen stared at his mother as she went back to cleaning up the kitchen like nothing had happened. “Are the doctors treating you?”
“They told me there’s no point. The cancer has too much of a hold on me for anything to help.”
“How long?”
She didn’t answer. Just kept washing the dishes, wiping down the table, as if the heaviness of it all could be scrubbed away.
Pen glanced at Dave, who was still at the table doing his best to disappear behind the local paper. The front page had some headline about the Korean War, something about Truman sending more troops overseas. But in that moment, nothing seemed more dire than his mother’s situation.
He didn’t have to wait long for his question to be answered.
His mother passed away within a month. His father carried on as if indifferent to the situation; Pen never saw him shed a tear.
Pen, though, spent many quiet nights with tear-filled eyes, grieving not just for his mother, but for the life she hadn’t got to live.
He missed her deeply. And the boys, God, they were lost without her.
He couldn’t abandon them now. Couldn’t walk away and leave them with that man. He wouldn’t do that to them.
There was no funeral, just a simple graveside prayer with the boys and their father.
The coffin was pine, the cheapest they could afford.
If it had been left to his father, she would have been cremated, but Pen knew that wasn’t what she wanted.
So, he had taken every penny he’d earned over the summer for Bates and bought her a proper casket.
His dreams of escaping Oak Ridge and heading to Bates were just that now, dreams.
Pen continued to work at the garage and take care of his brothers. He stepped into his mother’s role, cooking, cleaning, doing what needed to be done as his father showed absolutely no intention of doing any of it.
Not having many friends, Pen found himself spending more of his free time at Ward’s house. Ward understood grief; he had lost his wife, Emily, years earlier, and he knew how to talk about sorrow in a way that made it easier to bear. With Ward, he didn’t have to pretend to be strong.
Ward also understood why Pen needed to stay in Oak Ridge, but he never let him lose sight of his dreams. He encouraged him to keep learning, to hold on to the hope that one day, he might still find his way to Bates.
But weeks turned into months, and months rolled into years.
By 1955, five years had passed since his mother’s death.
The boys were nearly grown, now nineteen, seventeen, and fifteen.
Each had learned how to take care of themselves.
Val was the only one still in school. Pen was still grinding away at the garage, the days blurring together, with Thursday afternoons at Ward’s house the only small amount of pleasure in his life now.
He could see where his life was headed with painful clarity: a lifetime at the Gas ‘n’ Go, marrying some local girl, raising two point five kids in the same kind of dive trailer he had grown up in.
It was his worst nightmare, and it was slowly coming true before his eyes.
His outlook on life had gone from Prismacolor to a bleak black-and-white photo in a matter of years.