Book of Days_ A Novel - James L. Rubart [52]
CHAPTER 19
The Monday morning sun was bright as Cameron approached Taylor's house, the late model Ford truck out front throwing off little bursts of light like a disco ball from the seventies. The guy must polish it every day.
When no one answered the doorbell, he walked around the back of the house and found Taylor sitting on his back deck, wearing a tie-dye T-shirt, khaki shorts, and nothing on his feet.
He didn't acknowledge Cameron but had to know he was there. The boards on the deck squealed as Cameron walked across them, announcing his arrival as loudly as the mermaid wind chime would have if a wind had been blowing.
Cameron grabbed one of the Adirondack chairs against the house and pulled it within a few feet of Taylor and sat. A few minutes later, Taylor broke the silence.
"My feet roast in anything but sandals, still. Till age five I don't remember wearing shoes at all from April through September, except in church. Maybe sitting on those church pews—hard as granite, mind you—shoved the memory right out of my mind."
Taylor reached in and pulled something metal from his pocket. "I hated church. Not just 'cause of having to wear shoes. Every Sunday morning Pastor Davis Darton ranted about God's love and God's forgiveness but with a red face that looked like an overripe tomato ready to burst. I couldn't figure out how God could forgive anyone if He was perpetually angry.
"One Sunday after service, I snuck up to see if the spot where Pastor Darton pounded on his podium each week was dented. It wasn't, but the wood in the middle was a lighter color than the rest of it. To me, church wasn't a building; it was Annie singing one of the hymns we both loved or lying in the meadow with my eyes closed listening to her read from the Bible."
Interesting. Ann. Annie. "Who's Annie?"
Taylor sat without moving or speaking for at least two minutes. Finally he opened his hand and stared at the object resting on it. A window crank. He brought it up to his face and pressed it into his cheek until his skin turned bright red.
He sighed, dropped his hand, and began spinning the crank around his fingers. The sun flashed off it with each rotation, and with each rotation Taylor winced. After the seventh or eighth turn, Taylor squeezed his eyes shut and dropped his head.
Cameron shifted in his chair and tried to find something in the yard to focus on. It felt like he was sitting in on a Catholic confessional. Whatever crime Taylor was in the midst of paying penance for was serious.
Taylor raised his head and looked at Cameron. "Would you like to see it?"
"The . . . what?"
"This."
Cameron nodded and held out his hand.
Taylor held up the window crank for Cameron to look at but didn't hand it to him.
Cameron studied the crank and the blood rushed from his face. Why would Taylor have one of those?
"Do you know what this is, Cameron?"
He swallowed hard. "It's a window crank made sometime between 1965 and 1967. Standard on Ford Mustangs during those years."
"Not bad." Taylor squinted at him. "How'd you know that?"
He hesitated, then said, "I restored a '65 Mustang and gave it to my wife for a Christmas present one year." He didn't add that the only time Jessie drove it was to the airfield on the day she died.
A wave of what looked like surprise washed over Taylor's face, but he recovered a moment later. "That model was a great car." He sighed and laid the window crank on his knee.
They returned to silence and watched the wind blow through the pine trees bordering Taylor's property sixty yards away.
"Do you think God really forgives everything, Cameron? And if He forgives, does He forget? Or does He write everything down in that book of yours so it lasts forever?"
What was Taylor asking him about God for? Or was the question directed more toward Taylor himself?
"I don't know if He forgives, forgets, remembers, keeps track . . . God and I have never done a lot of communicating."
"Annie said He forgives it all. Past. Present. Future. For everything we've done that we're ashamed of. And remembers it no more.