Hearts Left Behind Read Online Free PDF Page A

believe that.  But I think maybe you were
looking forward to missing me a little more.”
    “Maybe a little,” she said, and I could hear the smile
that her words passed through.
    “Are you doing okay?”
    “We’re doing fine.  Tory’s been asking lots of
questions about both you and Ethan.”
    “What do you tell her?”
    “I tell her that we’ll see you soon and Ethan someday.”
    She asked how I was and what I had been doing, if I
was still drinking.  My answers were short like she knew they would
be.  Some truth, some lies.  “You’re still planning on coming over
for Mother’s Day, right?” I asked.
    “Yeah, sure.”
    “Good.  I can’t wait to see you guys.  I’ll
call you again tomorrow, okay?”
     
    “So?  How are you doing?” Grandma asked.
    We were in the car returning from Glidden where we had
been grocery shopping. She was wanting me to bring up
Ethan.  I wasn’t going to.
    “Fine,” I said.  “Thanks again for letting me
stay with you guys for a few nights.”
    “Oh, that’s no problem at all.  It’s nice having
some company.  Your grandfather and I don’t get that many visitors
anymore, you know.”
    At 40 miles-per-hour, the six-mile trip from Glidden
to Willow Grove can be excruciating, which is exactly what the drivers in the
line of cars behind Grandma were thinking, I’m sure.  That stretch of
route 38 has just enough curves and hills to make passing a near
impossibility.  When we came upon the one straight and flat stretch of
that part highway, three cars whizzed past, each with horns a-honking. 
    “Oh, those must be friends of yours,” Grandma said,
“they were waving.”
    “Yeah, and they think I’m number one, too,” I said,
under my breath.
    As we approached my old high school, Grandma slowed
down even more and pointed at the small farmhouse across the road from it.
    “You see that there?  Ain’t that something?”
    She was pointing at a great big red hay barn that had
been around as long as I could remember.  Except that now it had a hole right through its center.
    “Wow, what the heck happened there?”
    “Them tornadoes we had a few weeks back here. 
Two touched down.  One got the best of that barn.”
    What a strange sight to behold.  This big old
barn that had stood there forever now had a hole drilled right through its
center.  Like a freight train had driven right through it.
    “It looks like God tipped that tornado on its side and
drilled a whole through its center,” I said.
    “I believe God does things like that sometimes.”
    “I believe God can be random and cruel, if that’s what
you mean.”
    “There’s always a purpose, Tucker,” she said with the
kind of look that only the elderly can offer.  Her eyes were as blue with
promise as they must have been the day she was born.  Those eyes had not
aged at all, but the lids above them were heavy with years and the skin below
them sagged.
    “Really?   And what’s the
purpose of putting a hole through the middle of that barn, Grandma?”
    “Maybe just to show us that it survived,” Grandma
said.  “That barn will come down some day, but it won’t be because of that
tornado or the hole that it left.  It still stands, even with the hole right through its center.  And besides, now you
can see what’s on the other side of it.  You never could before.”
    “I looked, Grandma.  I didn’t see anything on the
other side.”
    “I know, Tucker.  That’s what bothers me.  People
who don’t see nothing on the other side of something
like that, well, that’s about what they live for - nothin ’.”
     
    I see half the beauty I used to see and twice as much despair .
    I’ve got twice as much
ambivalence and half as much of care.
    I hear half your words of sympathy, but none of
them console.
    I’ve got half a heart and half a mind and half of
me is hole .
     
    This cross is twice as heavy, but I’m feeling half
as strong.
    Today is half of yesterday, but the nights