House of Heroes by Mary LaChapelle

Author:Mary LaChapelle
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Tags: House of Heroes
ISBN: House_of_Heroes
Publisher: Dzanc Books
Published: 1988-12-26T16:00:00+00:00

ACCIDENTS

It was the third Saturday in October, and all the leaves in Minneapolis had been brought down in a storm two nights before. Every weather report was saying clear skies through the weekend, and Friday’s sun had already baked the dampness away. This was the day to rake. Anyone could have started the day the leaves began to drop, but being experienced home owners, we knew it was the big fall one waited for. It seemed the whole neighborhood was out in their yards, and if you listened, you could hear a unison of strokes as the leaves were slowly pushed down toward the street.

I say pushed down, because our street actually furrows down the middle of a hill, and the lawns on each side of it, including our own, slope up and away from it. This means that there are many steps to shovel in the winter and grass mowing is an almost perpendicular task, some of us using ropes to pull our mowers up the incline. Despite these disadvantages, we enjoy this hamletlike quality and a satisfying view of Minnehaha Creek curling through the park at the end of our road.

I had just rolled a pile of leaves onto the sidewalk when I heard my nine-year-old, Neil, calling me. His voice was faint in the distance. I watched him gliding his bike over the soft grass of the park, his sandy hair lifting into wings on each side of his head.

All my children are beautiful, but Neil has a physical grace and confidence that has caused even some of the other fathers in the neighborhood to comment. “A natural athlete,” someone will say. Or watching him descend the wooded hill behind our houses, one foot following another, no concern for weight, or gravity, or loose ground, I remember Dave Ferber from next door, turning away from our conversation, removing the pipe from his mouth, saying, “He’s really something, isn’t he?”

Something. None of us can name it, but we watch him with a mixture of joy and humility and loss. It’s as though the bike under his body, or the tree he climbs, or the water accepting his dive have never been things separate from himself—no more troublesome to him than the opening and closing of his eyes. He intimidates us, his ease and certainty reproaching our own daily fears. And yet we root him on, paradoxically: though his is an impossible magic that cannot last, we persist in believing that it should last and should have lasted in us.

When I waved to Neil now, as he rode from the park, it seemed to prod him into leaning forward and riding faster. He went over the curb and across the road with barely a glance for traffic. “That was careless,” I would tell him. But as I watched him come up the sidewalk toward me, I could see he wasn’t riding easily at all. He pumped awkwardly up the incline, his feet straining on the pedals each time they revolved.

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