SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1984
A week later I sat with Dantrelle in my kitchen as he wolfed down macaroni and cheese. We’d walked to Jewel for groceries and talked about the Chicago Bears and their season. He was excited to tell me about his new home and what he was learning in school. He commented on how different the view was from this side of the el tracks.
“Have you heard any more from your mom?”
He shook his head and grabbed a spoon to get the final bits of macaroni. “No. They say she’s going to be in jail for a while.”
I scraped the rest from the pan and he dug in with abandon.
“What I don’t understand is why I can’t live with you,” he said. “I like my foster parents, but school would be a lot closer if I walked from here rather than driving to it every day.”
“I wish I could offer that, Dantrelle. I can’t right now. And I don’t think it would be good for us. I think I need to keep being your mentor—your friend, rather than your parent.”
A bell rang and I pressed the buzzer to let a visitor in the front door downstairs.
“Is somebody coming over?” Dantrelle said.
“A friend of mine is bringing dessert.”
“You’ve got another friend besides me?”
“Don’t look so surprised,” I said, rumpling his hair.
I went to the door and opened it while Dantrelle watched from the table. The elevator stopped at the third floor and Kristin got off and walked into the apartment holding a plate of brownies.
“Miss Kristin!” Dantrelle said. He jumped up and hugged her, and I took the brownies and placed them on the table.
Dantrelle told her the same stories he’d been telling me all afternoon and she sat in rapt attention, listening and asking more questions. She leaned down to be on his level and got more information in ten minutes than I had in three hours.
We had dessert and Dantrelle said he wanted to swim again, but I told him his foster parents would arrive soon, so we took the elevator to the first floor and he ran around the atrium until they arrived.
He gave both of us a hug before he left, and I told him I’d see him after school on Tuesday. He smiled and waved as he walked hand in hand with the two people who were trying to give him a fresh start.
“They seem nice,” Kristin said. “He deserves someone who cares about him.”
“He sure does.”
“So you’ve recuperated from your trip?”
“I don’t know if I’ll ever fully recuperate, but yes. It was one of those eye-opening life events for me.”
“Really?” she said. “That sounds ominous.”
“Maybe I’ll tell you about it someday.”
She smiled.
“Listen, Kristin, there’s something I want to say. About us. When you called it quits, I was upset. I didn’t understand. But the more I’ve thought about it, the more I see you were right. We have a lot in common but we’re not really on the same page spiritually. I couldn’t see that. But the trip home opened my eyes.”
“What did you see?”
“It’s complicated. My dad was a pastor—is a pastor. So I picked up a lot of knowledge as a kid, but I think I confused being a Christian with being someone who rescues others. I’ve always felt that everything depends on me. It’s hard to break out of that. To believe that God cares in spite of what you see and is really in control.”
She was leaning forward with her chin in one hand, listening intently.
“What I’m saying is, I make a lousy savior. And I’m ready to leave that to God. To start over with him.”
She nodded. “That’s a great way to put it.”
“I’m not saying this to get you to change your mind about us. I’m not trying to rescue our relationship. I wanted you to know that what you said made a difference.”
She let me walk her down Wells Street, back to her dorm, telling me along the way about her classes and a difficult situation with a roommate. I thanked her for dessert and started to leave.
“Matt?” she said.
I turned.
“I can tell. There’s been a change. I’m really glad for you. It feels like a breakthrough.”
I smiled, then laughed, and then I put my hands over my face and couldn’t stop the tears.
“Was it something I said?” she said.
“No, you made me remember something good. Something someone used to say.”
She hugged me and I walked home with something burning in my chest, something white-hot and real.
Six months later, on the Cubs’ opening day, the smell of spring in the air, I received a letter from my mother in her usual scrawl. She told me about the latest in the community, the deaths and events that felt distant. My relationship with my parents had opened a little and there was even talk of a family reunion that summer, with Ben returning with his wife and family.
Tucked into the envelope was a clipping from the Herald-Dispatch.
Jesse and Earl Turley, of Dogwood, announce the birth of their son, Matthew Richard Turley, at 8:15 a.m. April 2, 1985, at St. Mary’s Hospital. He weighed 7 pounds, 8 ounces, and was 21 inches long.
I closed my eyes and brought back that summer again, tasting the watermelon and hearing the clicks on the CB and breathing the dust. Those days would always be part of me, and so would Jesse and Dickie and Daisy Grace. All the hurt and pain and longing and loss and joy began in the summer of 1972. And life had come from it. And I gave thanks to God for new seasons, new hope, and the promise of Jesse Woods.