rafters, above the massive Christmas tree that dominated the hall. I
treasured the moment, taking pleasure in the lightness I felt to have
music once again floating up from my chest, and wondering whether
Dad, if he were here, would have braved the university and all its
socialism to hear me sing. I believed he would.
—BUCK’S PEAK WAS UNCHANGED. The Princess was buried in snow but I
could see the deep contours of her legs. Mother was in the kitchen
when I arrived, stirring a stew with one hand and with the other
holding the phone and explaining the properties of motherwort. Dad’s
desk was still empty. He was in the basement, Mother said, in bed.
Something had hold of his lungs.
A burly stranger shuffled through the back door. Several seconds
passed before I recognized my brother. Luke’s beard was so thick, he
looked like one of his goats. His left eye was white and dead: he’d been
shot in the face with a paintball gun a few months before. He crossed
the room and clapped me on the back, and I stared into his remaining
eye, looking for something familiar. But it wasn’t until I saw the raised
scar on his forearm, a curved check mark two inches wide from where
the Shear had bitten his flesh, that I was sure this man was my
brother.* He told me he was living with his wife and a pack of kids in a
mobile home behind the barn, making his money working oil rigs in
North Dakota.
Two days passed. Dad came upstairs every evening and settled
himself into a sofa in the Chapel, where he would cough and watch TV
or read the Old Testament. I spent my days studying or helping
Mother.
On the third evening I was at the kitchen table, reading, when Shawn
and Benjamin shuffled through the back door. Benjamin was telling
Shawn about a punch he’d thrown after a fender bender in town. He
said that before climbing out of his truck to confront the other driver,
he’d slipped his handgun into the waistband of his jeans. “The guy
didn’t know what he was getting into,” Benjamin said, grinning.
“Only an idiot brings a gun into a mess like that,” Shawn said.
“I wasn’t gonna use it,” Benjamin muttered.
“Then don’t bring it,” Shawn said. “Then you know you won’t use it.