O
n a Sunday afternoon in January, seventh-grader Lena Miller and her father, Marty Miller, dashed through their once-a-week good-deed chores of feeding six elderly horses and cleaning the stalls at a ranch near Ramona, California. When they finished, they hurried home to wash away the horse scent and to dress warmly for an ice skating party sponsored by the Coyote Creek Waldorf School at a rink in Escondido. Lena had attended Waldorf through sixth grade but transferred to a “special” school for seventh, to deal with difficulties in math and reading. Her brother Matthew had graduated from Waldorf High School the previous June. Two months after graduation, he died of Duchenne’s muscular dystrophy. Marty Miller, once a carpenter but now an underemployed handyman, had cared for his son pretty much round-the-clock during the last two years of Matthew’s life.
By the time Marty and Lena parked outside the rink, the party inside had been underway for an hour. Lena fairly bounded from the car, saying, “See you inside, Dad. Can you please bring Mom’s brownies?” Miller’s wife, Noreen, had baked brownies with cream cheese swirls and chunks of chocolate to share at the munchies-and-desserts table. She was skipping the skating party to attend a “peace” service at their church; the next day was Martin Luther King Day.
Miller sat for a moment in the silence of his car, bracing himself for the awkwardness of greeting folks he had last seen at his son’s funeral or at the high school graduation. A lump in his throat felt like a half-melted cube of ice, as he recalled the Waldorf skating party of a year before, when Matt—pale, frail, hollow-eyed, but exultant—had raced his power wheelchair across the rink, swerving and spinning on unpopulated parts of the slick surface.
M
iller went inside, delivered Noreen’s dessert to an upstairs dining deck overlooking the ice, sampled some sweets, including the brownies, and served himself a cup of coffee. Feigning cheerfulness, he exchanged a few hellos. The place was crowded, and noisy with amplified music. He spotted Lena; she had found her friends.
Downstairs again, beside the skate-rental counter, Marty happened upon someone he was always glad to see, Evelyn Villalobos—a single mom, after-school playground lady, opera singer, astrologist, and bold holder of opinions. “Hey, stranger!” smiled Evelyn. “You’re not skating?” she asked as she looked down at Marty’s running shoes.
Miller grinned. “I skated last year.”
“So you skate one year and you don’t have to skate the next?” Evelyn asked. She was slender and tall, especially tall in blue-boot rental skates. She wore tight jeans and a huggable sweater of blue cashmere.
“That’s right,” said Miller. “First time I ever stayed up on skates was two years ago. Did just fine. Last year, again, no problem, nothing to it. For five minutes, that is, and then I went down like so.” He tipped forward to show her. “Wham! I ruined this wrist”—he pointed—“and this elbow, this forearm. My wrist and arm ached every single time I lifted Matthew, until the day he died.”
Evelyn’s eyes opened wide. “Matthew died?” she said. “When?”
“ Oh, Evelyn, Evelyn! You didn’t know?” Marty took her in his arms, being careful to keep his feet clear of her skate blades. His beard snagged in her sweater.
“When, Marty? No, I never heard.”
L
ater, on the drive home, Lena listened to her compact disks, on a portable player with earphones, leaving Marty alone with his thoughts. He and Noreen hadn’t sent out Christmas cards—not for several years. He supposed there were other friends and relatives who didn’t yet know Matt had passed away.
Marty recalled one of his favorite condolence notes, among the first to arrive in the mail. It came from a former colleague of Noreen’s and was addressed to her alone. “Dear Noreen,” the friend wrote. “We just learned of Marty’s death. We are so sorry. What a fine man and a wonderful father....”
Something similar happened a few months later. After church one Sunday, Miller tapped the shoulder of an elderly Japanese man, someone who came to services only once in a good long while. “Noboru-san! Good to see you!” Marty said.
The man turned, then stepped away, startled. “Martin!” he said. “Is that you, Martin? Somebody told me you was dead!”
“No, no, Noboru! Not me, my son. It was Matthew. He passed away this summer. You knew Matthew was sick.”
“Ohh! Not you, then, Martin! I thought you was one ghost!” Marty didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
One day in December, when Miller brought in the mail, he saw a certain return address from New York City, and he thought, Did Noreen and I tell Janelle? When he opened the envelope, he was sure they had not. The card featured a photo of Janelle’s only child, a ten-year-old who happened to be named Matthew, same as the Miller boy. In the snapshot, the kid was cute-as-can-be, but he was costumed for Halloween, armed with a scythe and gowned-and-hooded as the Grim Reaper. This time Marty did laugh out loud. Then he went to the phone to call Janelle, to bring her up to date on family news and ask if she would mind if he didn’t show Noreen the card.
M
ost of the road home was dark and winding, some of it steep enough to make the car engine groan with the load. On a straight stretch, where the street lights began, just outside their town, Marty reached over, to his right, and squeezed his daughter’s hand. As he did so, he noticed his left wrist, despite all those months of cautious use, was still a little sore. Many times, Miller thought, it seemed as if his son was with him still, right down to his bones. ♦
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