Twilight Knockers

[108 fountains]

Twilight Knockers

Wilmer and Virginia Wexler sat quietly in the living room of their wooden frame house, Wilmer on his brown recliner next to the fireplace paging through a hunting magazine, and Virginia crocheting a gold- and violet-colored afghan with her feet tucked in comfortably underneath her in the corner of their twenty-two-year-old Knoll sofa. For a woman in her early seventies, Virginia remained remarkably nimble, active and alert. She drove the three miles into town once or twice a week to pick up groceries and various sundries, and she was involved in several projects at the church, organizing bake sales and chicken dinners and serving on a committee charged with purchasing new Christmas decorations. She looked over at her husband. He had forgotten their forty-eighth anniversary last month, but she forgave him and never mentioned it. He had become more and more forgetful of such things recently, and she worried about his health.

Wilmer was a hunter at heart. For forty successive Septembers, he had gone up into Canada with his buddies to hunt caribou. Then six years ago, he had fallen and broken a vertebra in his back. He went again the following year, but the pain in his back during the long walks was nearly unbearable. He had not yet admitted to himself that he would never go hunting again.

“It’s cold in here, ain’t it?” he remarked.

“I turned the thermostat up to seventy,” replied Virginia. “You’d feel warmer if you wore some slippers over those socks. Why don’t you pull your chair up closer to the fireplace?”

Outside, a cold December wind moaned over the flat, barren landscape. The rust-colored remains of wheat stalks bristled out from under the thin covering of snow in the fields. Thick cumulus clouds that had loitered and skulked in the sky all day long sank lower and lower, draping the eastern Montana countryside with a heavy oppressiveness as twilight lurked within its own shadows.

“Hmmph! The TV said it was supposed to warm up some today, but it never did.” Wilmer shivered and said, “Must be that durned wind a-comin’ in through the winders. Probably needs some caulkin’ ‘round the sides.”

Virginia smiled. Wilmer used to love the winter. She remembered when she and he were small growing up in their little farm and cattle ranching community. The winter that they courted, he took her out ice-skating on Norstrom’s Lake six times. When they were done, they’d come in to her house where her mother had hot chocolate all prepared. After they were married, he took their children out sled riding on Crow Hill. Then it was she who prepared the hot chocolate. Since the kids had all grown up and moved away, Wilmer sat inside during the winter and complained that his feet were cold.

“What’s that?” asked Wilmer.

“What’s what?” retorted Virginia.

“Sounds like somebody a-knockin’ at the back door,” said Wilmer. “Funny time for visitors. It’s a’most dark. I’ll go see who ‘tis.”

Virginia hummed a carefree melody as she listened to Wilmer open the door back in the kitchen. “Hallo! Anybody there?” she heard him call.

“That’s funny,” he said walking back into the living room. “Nobody there. I could’a sworn I heard somebody a-knockin’ at the door.”

“Well,” said Virginia looking up at her husband with a baffled expression. “I didn’t hear anything. Maybe it was the wind.”

“Hmmph!” said Wilmer with a shrug of his shoulders. He walked over to the picture window and pulled back the faded curtains. Then he peered out the window intently. “Hey, look-ee there! It’s Dorothy Howard.”

“Dorothy Howard!” cried Virginia getting up and dropping her crochet needles on the floor in the process. “Dorothy Howard!” she cried again as she joined her husband at the window. “Where?”

“There! Over there by the red birches! Hmmph! Now, you can’t see her no more. She’s gone and disappeared behind the trees.”

Virginia looked at her husband, her eyes bright with concern. “Wilmer, you know Dorothy Howard’s been sick in bed this many days past. That couldn’t have been Dorothy Howard.”

“Well, I know what I seed,” retorted Wilmer. “There was Dorothy Howard as plain as day, a-walkin’ and a-wearin’ a big old overcoat. Now it’s too dark outside to see her down the road no more. I wonder what she wanted. I wonder why she didn’t stay after she knocked on the door there.”

“Oh, it couldn’t have been Dorothy Howard,” Virginia persisted. “She hasn’t been out of doors in weeks except to go to the doctor. You know she had that problem with her kidneys, and they said her heart was getting weaker every day. She wouldn’t have been out so late in the day like this. Why, it’s almost dark. Walking all the way over here? It couldn’t have been Dorothy Howard.” And she looked at her husband with an anxious regard.

“I tell you, it was Dorothy alright,” said Wilmer settling back in his brown recliner next to the fireplace and displaying his irritation by rustling the pages of his hunting magazine as loud as he could. “Hmmph! I know what I seed!”


to be continued...

[108 fountains]

The following morning at ten minutes past seven o’clock, Wilmer Wexler was scraping the frost off the windshield of his 1988 Ford truck F pickup. Virginia stepped out of the house bundled up in a pistachio green pea coat and wearing her emerald earrings. She always wore her emerald earrings, and a touch of lipstick, to church. Church was just about the only place where she and Wilmer went anymore where she could where them.

“Oh, Wilmer! You’re not going to take me to church in that thing, are you? Why don’t you drive the Mercury?” They kept a blue 1980 Mercury Monterey parked in the one-car garage. Virginia drove it when she went out with “the ladies” or on church business.

“Hmmph!” was all that Wilmer replied as he opened up the passenger door of the pickup for her to step up and in.

St. Benedict’s was a simple, but beautiful, country church with a single spire and twelve stained glass windows along its sides. It had been built in 1897 and renovated in 1976. It held two Sunday morning masses – one at 7:30 and one at 10:30 – at each of which about eighty parishioners came to worship.

Wilmer and Virginia blessed themselves with holy water as they entered the nave of the church and genuflected as they reached their pew toward the middle of the congregation. They nodded good morning to several acquaintances as they took their place. They knew nearly all of the people at the service on a first name basis.

Father Voorman had been with the parish for thirty-two years. He lived in the rectory next to the church and made it a point to visit each of his constituent families in their homes at least once a year. Rumor had it that when Father Voorman retired, the parish would have to make due with a part-time priest who would come to St. Benedict’s only once a week for Sunday mass. Although Father Voorman was beginning to show his age, Virginia hoped he would remain with them for a long time yet. He was kindly underneath a somewhat austere exterior. In that respect he reminded her of her husband Wilmer. She appreciated his personal interest in his parishioners, and she loved the smooth roundness and the stirring intonations of his voice when he delivered his sermons. She liked to imagine that Jesus had spoken with such a voice.

One of Father Voorman’s first duties shortly after his arrival years ago at St. Benedict’s was to preside over the funeral and burial of Virginia’s father. The priest could see that of the numerous family members, Virginia was particularly grieved. Of all her brothers and sisters, Virginia had been the closest to her father. Upon his death, for the first time in her life, Virginia questioned her faith. She felt that Jesus had abandoned her and that she had lost all direction. Father Voorman spent many hours with her after her father’s death. He gradually restored her faith in God and her devotion to the church. She felt as though Father Voorman had been sent to her to keep her headed in the right direction. Over the years, he also had presided over the marriages of all six of Virginia’s children. And he had been there, at the hospital, when Wilmer had had his heart attack. In one way or another, Father Voorman had become a benevolent presence entwined around all the major events of the latter part of Virginia’s adult life, and it was a comfort to her to have him still with her as they moved into old age.

On this frigid December morning, Father Voorman began his sermon with a sad news item. “Dear friends,” he began. “I feel it is my duty to inform you that Dorothy Howard passed away peacefully yesterday afternoon. She was surrounded by family and had received the last rites. Funeral information will be posted at the rectory this afternoon. We’ll have a special mass said for her Friday evening. Please pray with me – ‘Eternal rest, grant unto her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her. May the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace.’”

As the rest of the congregation answered the prayer with a solemn “Amen,” Virginia clutched at her husband’s elbow. He turned and met her searching eyes. The expression on his face was one of triumph as if he were saying, “See there? I told you. I know what I seed!”

Virginia’s eyes betrayed a more complex mix of emotions. While the facts of the matter logically led to the impossibility of Wilmer having ‘seed’ Dorothy Howard yesterday evening, the same facts ironically led Virginia to believe what her husband said. Her mouth opened in a short gasp of fear and astonishment.

After the service, Wilmer and Virginia rode home in the Ford pickup in silence. They did not speak of the incident, and they both understood that neither of them would ever mention it again.

That silence was nearly broken by Virginia just three days later following the burial service for Dorothy Howard at the churchyard behind St. Benedict’s. She had attended the service without Wilmer. He told that if she wanted to go see a cold body lowered into the even colder ground, well, she could go, but he was “a-gonna stay put right here by the fireplace.”

As everyone else at the service headed for their cars after paying their last condolences to Dorothy’s widowed husband, Virginia approached Father Voorman, who was walking briskly toward the rectory. “Father Voorman,” she called, coming up from behind him. “Father Voorman, do you have a moment?”

The good old priest stopped, turned around and said, “Of course I have a moment for you, Mrs. Wexler.”

Virginia smiled nervously and hesitated. She hadn’t planned on saying anything about the incident to Father Voorman. She had simply run up to him on impulse, and now she was at a loss as to what to say. “Father,” she said, collecting her thoughts, “do you believe in spirits? I mean, of course you do – you are a priest.” She giggled with nervous anxiety and resumed, “I mean, do you believe that people, people in this world, the physical world, can see… can see spirits?” As she finished her question, she looked toward the ground, embarrassed by how silly she felt she must have sounded.

When she looked back up, Father Voorman was beaming at her. “Dear lady,” he said, and as he spoke, he placed his hands gently on her shoulders. “There are things seen and unseen. There are things of this world and of the next. Do not trouble yourself. Only pray for your soul and for the souls of all the departed.”

“But it was Wilmer, Father Voorman. It was Wilmer. On the evening that Dorothy Howard died, he saw… He thought he saw…” Virginia cleared her throat and giggled nervously.

Father Voorman had raised his eyebrow, but seeing that Virginia was floundering, he took the helm and piloted her back to safer waters. “Dear Mrs. Wexler, please do not be troubled. There are mysteries in death just as there are mysteries in life. Let us not concern ourselves with things we cannot understand.”

He gazed on her with caring, kind-hearted eyes, and she felt greatly comforted in them. She felt that Father Voorman understood completely, and she had no need to explain herself further. “Thank you. Thank you, Father,” she said and took her leave.

Father Voorman watched as Virginia walked away to her blue 1980 Mercury. He stood looking down the road for a long time after she had driven away. As he turned back toward the rectory, he felt an oppressive perturbation settle over his shoulders.


to be continued...

[108 fountains]

The distance of seven weeks after the passing of Dorothy Howard found Wilmer Wexler coming home late in the afternoon from a survey of the pasturelands he rented to his neighbor. “Looks like spring is gonna be late this year,” he said as he took off his down jacket and handed it to Virginia to hang on the peg.

“Go on in the living room and sit down by the fire,” said Virginia. “I’m just now fixing to make a brown sugar meatloaf.”

“Now that sounds real good,” said Wilmer. “You know that’s my favorite.” And he kissed her on the forehead in a rare display of affection.

“Go on with you, now!” cried Virginia, laughing and pushing him away.

Wilmer sat down in his brown recliner and rummaged through the collection of magazines on the adjacent lamp table for something he hadn’t read recently. He and Virginia rarely watched television anymore. All the good shows they used to watch together – The Red Skelton Show, Jack Benny, The Rifleman, Mister Ed, Gunsmoke – had vanished from the airwaves long ago.

He glanced down at his magazine and then glanced up at Virginia puttering in the kitchen. He watched her through the doorway from the back as she moved back and forth, sparkling and diaphanous in the waning sunlight through the kitchen window. He smiled as he saw her apron strings tied in a bow in the back. She’s a nice, old-fashioned gal, he thought to himself. She’s always been good to me.

Wilmer saw Virginia’s shoulder length hair, now almost white, and remembered when it was long and flowing and brown. She had freckles back when she was a girl. Wilmer remembered that he had sat behind her in the third grade – that was when he had first become aware of her existence – and that he used to marvel at the silkiness of her hair then and would try to lift up the tresses from behind with his pencil. When the teacher wasn’t looking, she would turn around and whisper sharply, “Stop that, Wilmer Wexler!” But he believed – correctly – that she was secretly pleased with the attention.

He remembered the summer before they married when they used to go for long rides out on Old Cheyenne Road. He’d pull his dad’s old Nash off the road and park on the prairie at sunset. Virginia would get out of the car and pick bouquets of purple clover. Insects buzzed, and the flatness of the land made the horizon appear much nearer than it ought. And because of the shimmering waves of the sun, the horizon seemed to edge closer toward them. Occasionally they would see a solitary mule deer that would bound away if they approached too near. Wilmer chuckled when he remembered how he tried so hard that summer to sneak his hand under Virginia’s blouse. He was so clumsy and awkward! He recalled now with a certain pride that she never surrendered even that much until their wedding night.

And he remembered her as a young mother. He had never really thought of her as a beautiful woman until the moment he saw her holding their first child. Then he saw the perfect smoothness of her cheek, the clear, luminous eyes, and such an angelic expression upon her face that it astounded him, and he realized he had never beheld such beauty, neither in life nor in dreams. She had been a good mother, too, to all six of the children. She had changed their diapers, nursed them when they were sick, worried about them when they were well, helped them with homework, gone to all the parent-teachers meetings… And to think that, even at those times when they had deliberately set out to test her patience, she never once raised her hand or voice in anger!

Yes, she had been a good mother – and she had been a good wife. Besides taking care of the children, she had taken care of him. She washed his clothes, cooked his meals, and kept his house clean, never once complaining despite his habitual grumpiness. In the years when they ran their produce business, she had helped pack the crates in addition to keeping the accounts. He had been somewhat dismayed when, after their youngest daughter married, Virginia took to sleeping in that room and away from him. But he didn’t blame her – his snoring was abominable and kept her awake. Besides, the romantic part of their marriage had died out many years before.

The fire in the fireplace was warm. Wilmer was exhausted from being outside nearly all day. He took another glimpse back toward the kitchen where Virginia was adding salt and a little lemon juice to the Brussels sprouts. He smiled, sighed deeply, and let his hunting magazine slide to the floor.

Virginia felt a draft and noticed that the back door was unlatched. She pulled the door shut and stepped back into the kitchen where she put the Brussels sprouts in the microwave and checked on the meatloaf in the oven. “Supper will be ready soon!” she called into the living room. Hearing no response, she smiled to herself. “Taking another nap!” she whispered out loud. She stepped into the living room to lay the new gold and violet afghan over Wilmer to keep him warm. When she drew near, she saw the pallor of his face and she knew. She wiped the drool away from his mouth with the afghan. Then she pushed the thin wisps of his gray hair back away from his forehead. She didn’t cry out, she didn’t heave heavy sobs – she just made a sort of whimpering sound.

Virginia laid her hand on Wilmer’s slumping shoulder, and looked down on him with tenderness for some minutes. Her thoughts were jumbled, and she felt bewildered. At length a thought gradually took shape that that she couldn’t remember the last time she had held him or embraced him. As this thought took hold, she wondered now, at this moment, if he even knew she loved him still, after all these years. Finally, with this thought, the tears flowed.

Virginia called the funeral home first. While she waited, she went to the closet and took out Wilmer’s suit. She was unable to recall the last time he wore it. After she laid out his best clothes, she began making the phone calls to her children. The very idea that Wilmer was really gone had not yet fully sunk in even after those calls and even after the men from the funeral home had taken him away. The house was empty, and she was lost. She didn’t know what to do or where to go.

The meat loaf was out on the kitchen table, still steaming. She couldn’t remember having taken it out of the oven. Mechanically, she went in to the kitchen and began washing dishes. As she ran the hot water, her thoughts wandered. This was the first time in her life that she had ever been alone, completely alone. Growing up, she had been the favorite of her father. Strong and imposing with a chiseled, weathered face that both absorbed and returned radiance and warmth like the distant buttes in the west at sunrise, he had always made her feel safe and secure. Then there was Wilmer. He had been a self-conscious, goofy kid, all elbows and knees, in blue jeans that were too short in the ankles and a cowboy hat that was too large in the crown, but he had grown up to be hearty and upright and a caring and protective husband and father. Her father and her husband – these had been the two men in her life; her father had been her anchor and Wilmer had been her sails. Oh, there were her children, too, of course. Her sons were grown into men now and had children of their own, but she would always think of them as her “boys.” And of course there was the Church, but Jesus somehow seemed to her to be too far away, too ethereal. She needed a man who was tangible. She needed someone whom she could cling to. Father Voorman was more real, more approachable. Yes, Father Voorman was also one of her life’s constants, she thought with some consolation. Father Voorman had been her rudder; she could depend on him for direction and steadiness. She suddenly exclaimed out loud, “Father Voorman! Oh, my goodness! I forgot to call Father Voorman!” She dried her hands on her apron, and made the call. He told her he would be right over.

Virginia finished the dishes and put on a pot of coffee. She debated whether she should leave the meatloaf out for Father Voorman. It was well past dinner time now, so instead she set out slices of sweet cornbread to go with the coffee.

“I’m so sorry for your loss, Mrs. Wexler,” said Father Voorman as he entered through the back door. He moved slowly and took off his coat deliberately before handing it to Virginia to hang on the peg next to Wilmer’s down jacket. She could see that his face was troubled, and she thought she knew why.

“Oh, Father Voorman! I made a terrible mistake! I committed a terrible sin!” She stood in front of him chafing her hands together nervously.

“You? A terrible sin?” smiled the priest as the shadow passed from his face. “What is it, Mrs. Wexler? What’s on your mind?”

“I didn’t call you,” she replied. “I didn’t think to call you until now. They have already taken him to the funeral home.” She paused to catch her breath. “I didn’t think to call you before they came. He hasn’t had the Last Sacrament – oh, it was so wrong of me not to think of it! You must think I am terribly wicked!”

“My dear Mrs. Wexler, I don’t believe that wickedness has ever even attempted to approach you,” Father Voorman said in his placid, soothing tones. “As for the last rites, please do not trouble yourself. I will go to the funeral home tonight to offer the Prayers for the Dead, and I will take you there with me if you like. I think, yes, I think it will do you good.”

“But I should have called you right away. It was so wrong of me to forget. My poor Wilmer. How could I do that to him?”

“My dear Mrs. Wexler, I can assure you that Wilmer has already begun his journey to the Lord. He is already at peace. You have nothing to blame yourself for.”

“Oh, Father Voorman. Do you think so? Do you really think…,” here she paused, uncertain of the correct way of putting such a question to a priest. “Do you really think he will be alright?”

“I am sure of it,” replied Father Voorman. Then he cleared his throat, and the shadow that had been on his face when he first arrived reappeared. “Actually, I have been waiting for your call. You see,” he resumed with some hesitation, “I have seen him.”

Virginia opened her mouth, but was unable to speak. Her eyes asked the question.

“Shortly after sunset,” Father Voorman continued, “I heard a knock on the door at the rectory. When I opened the door, no one was there, but then I stepped outside and I saw him – your husband – walking away. As he turned the corner, I saw his face. It was radiant with joy, perfectly radiant.”

Virginia held her hand over her mouth. Her immediate feeling was one of great relief followed by elation. She pictured Wilmer’s face in her mind. Yes, he had been smiling when she found him on the brown recliner. She believed what Father Voorman said to be true. Then she looked at the old priest and saw the distress that he was so valiantly trying to hide. “He knocked on your door?” she inquired. “He knocked on your door?”

“Yes,” he answered with a faint smile. He swallowed, and the look that passed between them revealed that they both knew what portended. “But do not trouble yourself,” he added quickly. “I… I am not afraid. I am prepared. I am prepared, but, of course, well, it is a little disconcerting.”

She looked up into his face and saw there the shining features of one who has been called. She glimpsed eternity in his eyes, but she also felt a vast emptiness opening upon her. She felt and understood the loss of her husband, the utter loss of him, for the first time. She felt anew the loss of her father, so long repressed. She felt the immensity of being, and she felt the absolute desolation of being cast adrift, alone upon the sea. She put her arms around the priest and held him tight. She held him so tight and for so long that he began to feel uncomfortable. He tried gently to break her hold, but she clutched at him all the tighter, holding him, clasping him, holding onto him like she would never let him go.


The End

[MANICHAEAN]

You captured everything so well; an old couple approaching the last leg of life, and the degree of mutual subdued passion, no longer physical as such, but more spiritual. And then of course the whole concept of awareness outside of any mortal dimensions; feelings and emotions experienced that do not evoke fear as such, but a grudging acceptability of the finality of it all.

It was also such a light touch, but full of substance with how you handled the widow, (as she was now), clinging to a man of God; his own demeanour quietly shaken by what I presume is an omen of imminent demise.

I write myself from a combination of what I research and read, combined with observation and the interpretation of situations that I actually experience in life. Thus basically what you see is what you get. But I suspect that with yourself, your creativity is much stronger, and I would have been hard put to express adequately the delicacy and feeling in what I have just read in your story.

Continue to enjoy what you write, as much as many will appreciate the finished product.

Best wishes
M.

[DATo]

Well done 108! You know, I'm getting tired of saying that *LOL* Can't you write a stinker ... just once?

It was a lovely piece. Your descriptions, which I consider your strong suit, were, as always, beautifully rendered, especially the descriptions of the emotional relationship between the principal characters. This story had just enough of the Twilight Zone spice to add flavor while not so much as to make it tacky.

As always, I look forward to your next contribution.

[108 fountains]

Thanks, gyus, for your kind words and encouragement. MANICHAEAN, like you, most of my stories are about my own experiences or about someone I know. What I like about this one is that, yeah, it's almost all from imagination - Wilmer, Virginia, and Father Voorman are complete fabrications and not based on any real life persons. I got the idea for the story on hearing that a neighbor of an aged aunt of mine told people at the funeral home that he was sure he had seen her walking by his house the evening of the day she died. Originally, I had planned on writing a simple ghost story based on that, but once I got into the writing, the characters seemed to take on a life of their own, and the story turned out to not really be a ghost story at all.

You might be surprised to learn that Senior Gonzalez and Uncle Walter, Suchin, and even the Wild Boy are almost entirely true stories. The real Suchin recovered from her suicide attempt and, I'm happy to say, has been drug-free for about 5 years now. Everything in the story about the Wild Boy - the nurse, the dogs, the human fetus, the poisoning, the croquet mallet, the tree where the vultures roosted, and the little girl who was unable to get a blood transfusion - all that is true and, in fact , not embellished in any way. The ending was fictional, however. The Wild Boy never came into the hospital for treatment and may still be roaming around town for all I know. The actual setting was a Nepali town on the other side of the border from Bareilly in northern India, and the main character (me) worked in the hospital lab as a technologist, not a doctor.

[hounddog905]

This is one of those stories that stays with you long after you read it. For me, it's kind of like an open casket viewing at a funeral, sad and creepy at first, yet there is something, comforting and uplifting about it. You've done a great job with the storyline and character development. My only quibble is that in some parts, the narrative seems a bit too excessive i.e. Father Voortman's background (page 2). There are some other narrative parts as well that seem to stifle the pace of the story a little but all in all, a beautifully written story and one that will stay stay with me for a long, long time.

[108 fountains]

Thanks very much hounddog. I appreciate the kind words, and I also agree that I think its weakness in in the background material narrative that is spread throughout the piece. I bet if I look at it once again, I can cut back on some of that.