I Should Be Laughing: Harry & Renny in the Forever Fields

The hilltops had disappeared when Harry started across Skeleton Road for the Forever Fields. Once the sun set everything turned black and the mountains that loomed opposite the fields melded with the night sky; he could have been at the edge of a vast desert or ocean for all he knew, not at the foot of a range of mountains that spanned the entire west coast. The only lights around that night were the stars twinkling overhead, he glimpsed them between passing clouds, the stale yellow lights of The Landing, and the headlights of sporadic travelers driving up or down the highway; halogen beams pointing north or south, anywhere but here.

He was kicking a piece of gravel along the road when he saw her for the first time in over twenty years. Renny stood just off the roadbed in the slender tall grasses, the reeds tall enough to tickle her waist. With her back to the house and her arms folded over her breasts, Harry imagined her legs quivering in the chill. She had shoved her hands into the sleeves of her sweater; she had always done that, mostly out of fear rather than cold and he knew that she had every reason to be afraid. Moving silently nearer, Harry looked, as she was, into the black shadowy void of her Forever Fields.

“Hasn’t changed a lick, has it Ren?” He could feel her relax and smile; it was as if the cool night air, which had walled her deep in thought, shifted as he spoke and she could breathe; a tender breeze radiated from her body. He heard the rustle of her sweater as she tugged her hands free, and she crisscrossed a tiny gravel patch between them, still eyeing the field though it had vanished for the night. The only clue that the meadow existed at all were the occasional headlights drifting up or down the far edge.

“I’m so glad you came, Harry.”

“It’s what she wanted—.”

“And she always got what she wanted.” Renny laughed darkly.

Surveying the sky, Harry tried to think of something to say, anything to change the subject. Having only just arrived, he did not want to have this conversation just now. They would have plenty of time to talk about their mother, what she had…. There would be time to tell one another of their lives, before, and after Beal’s’ Landing, so Harry said the only thing he could think of to say.

“I can’t believe it’s still empty.”

“Except for the memories,” Renny said, her voice coming out of nothingness to find him. “Dead bodies and make out sessions.” She laughed again, tenderly this time, and then it wasn’t so cold. “I used to sneak out here with Jeff Banks after she…fell asleep.”

Harry smiled. This felt good; this was what he thought a homecoming should be…. Old times; telling stories and laughing; talking with his sister in the Forever Fields. Not like Jimmy who was all silence and sly stares.

“We would spread a blanket out beneath that tree.” She was saying. And he looked to where Renny’s words lead him and saw the outline of a grand oak in the middle of the meadow. “Jeff would bring a bottle of Boone’s Farm from his truck. Do you remember that wine, Harry? It was awful! God! But we drank it and kissed and…. right before dawn I would run home, pulling twigs and burs from my hair and clothes.” Renny laughed again. “Did you ever bring a girl up there, Harry?”

“Only you.” He frowned; she didn’t know. He always assumed, since they had once been close, that she knew. “Only you.”

“I meant a girlfriend.” This time the warmth of her laughter became cool before finding him. The night air started to rebuild its dark wall so Harry took a deep breath and let it out before he could stop himself. He had practiced this forever, saying the words to his family. The letter hadn’t worked; his mother stopped speaking to him. Jimmy learned about him quite by accident and that was no better. It was left to him to tell Renny, but why was it so hard? Why could he smile sweetly at any store clerk and tell him the sweater was a gift for his boyfriend? How was it so easy to introduce Wyatt to classmates as his partner, and yet now the words left him tumbling and stammering.

“I’m gay,” He said in a rush. “Gay. …Gay. I’m…g-gay.”

“Oh,” she said quietly, pulling back. “I didn’t know.

“It’s okay, Renny. I thought maybe you did, but…. I don’t think I even realized it myself until you were gone. I just thought I was…different.”

“Still, Harry, I should have known….” Renny sighed, recalling the times she and Harry spent together, the things they had said and done; things unsaid. He never had a girlfriend as far as she knew, but then he was only eleven the last time she had seen him; he didn’t have many friends, except for that one quiet boy, Sean something-or-other. But she was his sister, they shared secrets and she should have known. “Is there someone—.”

“He’s in the house.” Harry answered before she could finish. Now it was Renny's turn to feel a smile in the shadows. “His name is Wyatt. He’s a painter and…. We’ve been together for six years now.”

“Oh, God.” Try as she might, Renny began to weep; twenty years of tears fell off her cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Harry.”

Steeling himself, Harry was ready for this; he would tell Renny exactly what he thought of her opinion. He hadn’t gotten the chance with his mother because she returned his cards and letters unopened, and he had been afraid to call. There was no chance with Jimmy, because he had ignored Wyatt and practically run from the room, but he wouldn’t let Renny—

“Are you happy?” She caught him off-guard.

“Yes.” Harry surprised even himself with how quickly and easily he responded. “I love him, Renny. I am…. We are happy.”

“God! I’m so glad for you, Harry” It was a moment a sister should have hugged her brother, a moment in most families where there would have been a hug. Instead, in this particular family, Renny could only touch his arm; he patted her hand quickly, before she took it back. It was quite cold in the fields after all.

“What about you, Ren?” He looked down at her though she remained invisible to him, nothing more than an otherworldly silhouette in the dim light sent up from town. “Are you happy?”

“No…not really…I mean…I’ve tried, Harry, I really have, but I keep screwing up.” Renny said bitterly. Her hands disappeared again, into her sleeves, and she pulled inside herself. “I try so hard to do what’s…and then….”

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t…. Let’s not talk about this now.” Just like that, she was in front of Harry and he could see her smile, all black-and-white light and shadows. Renny threw her arms around his neck and kissed him so quickly that, later on, as he was about to fall asleep on top of the bed linens, he swore to himself it hadn’t happened. He had been too stunned to even return the kiss or the hug; he stood there with his arms at his side until she looped an arm through his and pulled him from the reedy, grassy Forever Fields.

“We’ll have lots of time to discuss the myriad of ways in which I’ve destroyed my life…my lives…but right now I want to go inside, get warm and get something to eat….” She began to run, holding his hand and pulling at him, as she had that day she found the bum with the bad heart in the fields. “I want to go inside and meet the man who makes you so happy. I want to know who put that smile on your face.”

Laughing across the road, Renny and Harry reached the porch just as the front door flew open, the panes of glass on either side clattering. They met Jimmy as he raced outside, dragging his coat along the pine porch planks.

“Jimmy?” They said together.

“I gotta go,” He told them, leaping from the top step to the ground like a schoolboy and then stomping over the front yard to his car. “I gotta get home to Emma and the….” Jimmy’s words died at his back and he slung his coat over his shoulder. By the time Wyatt stepped onto the porch, between Harry and Renny, Jimmy’s grungy coupe was coughing its way into town. The reunion of the Seaton children, such as it was, had lasted all of three seconds. After all their years apart they weren’t together long enough to say hello.

“What happened?” Harry turned to Wyatt for an answer. Jimmy’s sudden flight from the house so concerned him that he didn’t stop to introduce Wyatt to his sister. “What’s wrong with him?”

“We were talking…” Wyatt shook his head and went back into the kitchen, followed by Harry and Renny, who stopped in the dining room to fill a tumbler with Scotch from a decanter on the sideboard. Wyatt sat at the table; Harry and Renny did the same. Wyatt looked at them. “I hate to say this, but he’s furious with the two of you.”

“Why?” Harry asked calmly, though he knew the reason already. He and Renny had gotten away; Jimmy had not. He and Renny had lives of their own, free from their mother; Jimmy did not. Without knowing it, and without meaning for it to happen, they excluded Jimmy from their lives and left him behind, in this house.

“You left him.” Wyatt agreed with Harry’s unspoken sentiments. “You got to leave, which is how Jimmy sees it. He says he stayed here and took it—his words—while you and Renny were able to get away, both of you. Jimmy, because he couldn't leave her alone and because she wouldn't leave him alone, stayed here to take care of your mother. He found her, you know, upstairs in her—.”

“You got all this from a five-minute conversation with a stranger?” Renny blurted out bitingly. She was seething, sitting there listening to this…outsider…dissect her family, judging her. He didn’t grow up in this house. Hell! He just walked through the goddamned door five minutes ago! He never lived here, going day to day not knowing what to expect; never sure if there would be food on the table or clean clothes in the closets; not knowing when, or why, the hands would clip you on the side of the face. She drained the glass of liquor and let it crash to the table. “You think you have us figured out, huh, Wyatt?”

“Wait a minute, Renny.” Harry tried to intervene. “He was only—.”
“No, Harry!” Renny raged on, her face flushed from the booze. “Poor Jimmy! He had to stay here and I got to leave? I don’t remember it that way at all.” Standing up, she reeled over Wyatt and exploded. “I didn’t get to leave this house, Wyatt; it wasn’t like I had done my time and was pardoned. I had to leave because if I didn’t…God knows what would have happened! I may have ended up just like her…I…may…be…her!” Bolting from the room, Renny stopped only long enough to refill her glass.