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How could I not wonder how he and I were alike? The worlds we came from were so vastly different. Most of the young people our age would and even did envy him for what he had already. I remembered Daddy's comments about people who were always looking beyond their own fields of achievement, their own accomplishments, yearning to have what someone else had. Was Chandler one of them? Would he ever be happy?
He was quiet for a long moment. Then he smiled to himself and turned to me.
"Remember that night after our first duet practice, when you told me if I understood how the piano plays me, I'd understand myself, and I countered by saving who says I don't understand myself?"
"Yes," I said.
"Well. I was just being a big shot. Honey. I don't know who I am. I think I'm on the bottom of the list when it comes to that. I mean. I should have no problem with identity. My parents put our name out there prominently. Everyone knows who I am but me.
"Parents take it for granted that because you have inherited their name and because you walk in the long, wide shadows they cast, you'll be just another example of who they are and what they are. My parents can't even begin to imagine me not being happy with the things that make them happy.
"Somehow, parents take it personal if you claim your own identity, set out to be different. They set it as a rejection of them, but it's not that. It's a search for your own self-meaning.
"That's what I have to discover and that's why I have to get away." He grimaced.
"Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to get so deep and lay all this heavy stuff on you."
"No, I'm glad you did.'
"Really? Most girls would just think me very boring. I'm sure,' he said.
"You're hardly that. Chandler." He smiled.
"I am without you." he said.
He reached for my hand and I snuggled closer to him. We were silent, moving along, the headlights of his car plowing a path through the darkness for us, both of us wondering what really lay ahead.
He drove very slowly up our driveway, probably expecting Grandad to pop out at us from some dark shadow again. I was half-expecting something like that myself. To both our reliefs, there was no one around. It was quiet and dark. Uncle Simon's light was off and so were most of the lights in my house.
"I had a good time. Honey," Chandler said. "I hope you did, too," he added, a worried look in his eyes.
"I did," I said convincingly enough to bring a smile back to his face. "I'll call you tomorrow, if that's all right."
"Yes. I'd like that." I said. He edged toward me and I met him halfway to kiss him good night. Then I got out, closed the car door softly, and ran into the house. There was just a small lamp on in the hallway. I tip
toed up the stairs. They creaked like tattletales, and when I reached the landing, Mommy stepped to her bedroom doorway.
"Have fun. Honey?" she asked. She was in her nightgown, her hair down around her shoulders.
"Yes."
"Good. Okay, sleep well. We have a big day on the farm tomorrow," she said to explain why they were all asleep already.
Besides our usual chores, there was the planting of the north field. and I knew that Daddy and Grandad had some repair work to do on the grain combine, the machine we used to harvest our corn in the fall.
"Good night. Mommy," I said and entered my room.
My mind was so heavily occupied with all that had happened on my date with Chandler that I didn't see what was on my bed until I actually had gone to the bathroom, put an my nightgown, and reached for the blanket to turn it back and crawl under.
There, prominently before me. was Grandad's old Bible with a faded blue ribbon inserted in the pages to mark a place. For a moment I stood there frozen, almost too afraid to touch it. Grandad had once told me the story of a sinful woman who, when she attended Communion at her church, choked to death on a wafer.
"When a soiled soul confronts something holy, the Lord's retribution is mighty and dreadful," he said.
I thought about calling Mommy to show her what he had done. but I was afraid. What if something terrible happened to her because I made her lift the Bible off my bed? Was I a fool to believe in such things? Despite what I thought of him and his ways, Grandad Forman was so confident, so sure that he knew what God wanted of us.
To illustrate his confidence, he often pointed to his success as a farmer.
"God rewards me for my devotion," he claimed. "Everything I have, everything I do is dependent upon nature, solidly in the palm of God's very hand. He could wipe me out in an instant," he said, snapping his fingers right before my eyes.
