The Door to Heaven
The Door to Heaven
CONTENTS
Title
Copyright
Scripture Quote One
Chapter One - Dominic
Chapter Two - Pascala
Chapter Three - Dominic
Chapter Four - Pascala
Chapter Five - Dominic
Chapter Six - Pascala
Chapter Seven - Dominic
Chapter Eight - Pascala
Chapter Nine - Dominic
Scripture Quote Two
Other Books by Becket
Preview of The Christmas King
Credits
Other Books by Becket
Author Bio
The Door to Heaven
Becket
Copyright © 2014 Becket
All rights reserved.
Smashwords Edition
ISBN: 1-941240-13-5
ISBN-13: 978-1-941240-13-7
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the imagination of the creator(s) or are used fictitiously.
Under copyright law, if you are not the copyright owner of this work, you are forbidden to reproduce, create derivative works based on this work, download, distribute copies of the work, decompile this work without Becket’s express written permission.
When I was a child I used to talk as a child and think as a child and reason as a child.
1 Corinthians 13:11
The Door to Heaven
Dominic & Pascala
DOMINIC
Dominic saw the door to heaven first when he was eleven. A powerful thunderstorm was raging over his home in the San Jacinto Mountains. The rain was pouring down and the winds were howling. Dominic was sitting crossed-legged before the backdoor window. It was pitch dark outside. He was watching the storm and counting the seconds between the flash of lightning and the rumble of thunder. But there were no seconds to count. The storm was on top of his house. Lightning and thunder exploded together and rattled the doors and windows.
His papa and mamá were at the dining table. She hated the storm. Every flash of lightning, every burst of thunder made her jump. She could not stop trembling. Death did not frighten her. Dying did. And her fear of what dying might be like often kept her from living. Dominic’s papa was like a stoic statue. Tall and burly with wide shoulders and a broad chest, he tried to comfort Dominic’s mamá by wrapping one of his strong, black-haired arms around her. With his other hand he offered to her a plate of buñuelos that he had baked before the power went out. The sight of food sickened her. She put her hand to her mouth and shook her head. “No tengo hambre,” she said.
Lightning and thunder shook the house again. Dominic laughed with delight. His mamá screamed. She was frightened half-out of her mind. She hurried from the table to the kneeler that his papa had made. Kneeling, weaving her rosary beads through her fingers, hiding her face in her hands, she begged God to grant her a merciful deliverance. She was like this all the time. She prayed this way whenever she wanted to move back to her familia in Mexico even though they shunned her for marrying the man they called “El Gringo” and “El Extranjero.” The storm outside the house is like the storm inside mamá’s heart, Dominic thought. Then he left the backdoor window and went to his mamá’s side. He combed his fingers through her long black hair dangling over her face and hands and over the kneeler’s armrest. He could hear her whispering countless times words that he had already heard her whisper countless times before: “Madre de los Dolores… Madre de los Dolores… Madre de los Dolores…” Dominic did not understand her. He pitied her daily sadness.
The storm intensified. Dominic returned to the backdoor to watch the storm through the window. In the second-quick flashes of lightning, he could see the acre of land that went from the back porch to the lake. The sight seemed so strange and wonderful. The force of the storm churned the surface of the lake. Waves swelled in turbulent undulations. It seemed as if a violent monster were hiding in the depths, crouching, shaking the whole lake like some restless sleeper beneath a black sheet. The lake was vast. It seemed to stretch beyond the horizon. The opposite shore was almost impossible to see on a clear day and that night it was completely lost in the darkness. But in the flashes of lightning Dominic could just make out the silhouette of the island in the middle. He called it “Duck Island” because the first time he swam out there he found mallard skeletons and nests with broken eggshells. The island had a flat base and pointed peak and its silhouette in the storm looked like a witch’s hat. He had an urge to swim out there again, despite the storm. He wanted to be brave like his papa. He wanted to stand among its trees, bowing together before the storm like worshipers. He wanted to be the island in the storm. The storm caused the lake to rise. His backyard soon flooded. The tide came up to the back porch. He had seen this before. He knew that there would be much debris to clean up in the morning when the storm had passed.
The Door to Heaven appeared in the backyard. It stood like a monolith against this storm of the world. It was brown with a white frame and a brass doorknob. The rising water surrounded it. The strong tide crashed against it. The Door to Heaven was immovable and formidable. Dominic wondered how it got there. He wondered if his papa was working on a new project. He watched the Door to Heaven. The Door to Heaven watched over him.
The next day was clear and peaceful. The breeze was mild. Sunlight gleamed across the still surface of the lake. The lake reflected the rich blue sky and the surrounding forest with the pines and the oaks and the evergreens. Dominic had forgotten about the Door to Heaven when he awoke. It was not in his backyard that morning. He walked with his papa from the back porch to the lake. They surveyed the damage together. Several trees had been knocked down. Branches were strewn everywhere. The house was not damaged and Dominic was pleased because his papa was pleased. His papa was the village millwright. He had built the house and he knew it better than he knew his wife. Dominic was determined to learn the craft of his papa. He would build a life of security in structures. Now his papa sat for a long time on the back porch and thought. He sat beside him and watched through the corner of his eyes how his papa stroked his thick black mustache. Dominic also stroked his upper lip, eager for the day when he could grow a mustache too.
He turned to look at Duck Island. The urge to swim out there was still a powerful current in him. Sunlight shimmering off the waves ringed the island like a jeweled crown. The island’s base was overgrown with several kinds of fruit-bearing trees. There were pear trees and almond trees and fig trees. They did not grow on the mainland, only on the island. His papa believed that an ancient people dwelling on the island long ago had planted them. Squaw bushes also grew there near the hill between the rocks and crags. Bright red berries speckled the squaw bushes. They tasted sour and sweet like lemonade. He and his papa used to swim out to the island to eat the fruit of the trees and the squaw bush berries. Dominic liked the fruits and nuts and he tried to like the squaw bush berries like his papa, but the taste made him pucker and wrinkle his nose. His papa laughed and explained that squaw bush berries were wonderful for living alone in the wilderness. The berries were good for vitamin C, the branches were durable enough to be woven into baskets, and the bark was chewable for soothing toothaches and good to boil into a broth for curing colds. Dominic liked the idea of living on the island. He loved what his papa loved.
The storm had pulled up many trees from the ground, exposing their tangled roots. His papa explained that the felled trees and branches were good wood. “God allowed the storm to knock them down,” he said in his deep, gruff voice, “in the same way God allows us to be knocked down during the storms of our lives.”
“I don’t like falling down, papa,” Dominic said.
“Even though falling hurts us, papa?”
“Especially when our falls hurt us.”
He and his papa walked through the backyard together. His papa talked about his favorite books. Robinson Crusoe and Huckleberry Finn were his heroes when he was Dominic’s age. Dominic had not read those books, but he was determined that his papa’s heroes would be his heroes also. His papa asked if he would like to help build a raft and punt out to Duck Island. The idea delighted Dominic. He smiled and was eager to begin. He gathered the branches while his papa dragged the trunks into two piles in the backyard. They left the wood in the sun to dry and they went inside. His papa said he had to sketch a design for the raft. But he did not work with the usual drawing boards of millwrights and carpenters. He drew his designs on the walls of his house. Dominic’s mamá used to say that they made the house look like a cave covered in prehistoric paintings. She would tease his papa, calling him, “Cavernicola mia,” which Dominic’s papa would translate for him, “Her caveman.” Then his papa would grunt like a caveman and beat his chest like an ape.
Now his papa went into the house and knelt before the hallway wall. Dominic sat cross-legged beside him and watched him search along the wall for an open space among his many other sketches where he might design the raft.
“Here’s a place for you, papa,” he said, finding a space between the design of the back porch and the design of his mamá’s dresser.
“Good eye,” his papa said to him with a wink.
Then he started sketching a design for the raft. Dominic was surprised at how fast his papa worked. He seemed to sketch the design in no time, drawing the delicate lines sometimes with the motion of his fingers, sometimes with his wrist, and sometimes with his whole arm. And when he had finished, it was not merely a simple sketch, but a professional design that was geometrically perfect. The caveman was a master of arithmetical sleight of hand.
Dominic’s mamá tried to call across the border to speak with her family, but the phones went out the night before and they were still not working. She was not happy and she spoke to God and to herself in the quick Mexican Spanish that Dominic had not yet learned: “Senor, ten piedad. Cristo, ten piedad. Senor, ten piedad.”
Now his mamá came into the hallway with her bare feet stomping on the hardwood floors. She looked over their shoulders and saw the design of the raft. She looked from the hallway to the backyard, from the backyard to the lake, and from the lake to the island. Then she turned back to the hallway wall and she pointed to the design of the raft. “Paint over this cave art,” she demanded with her thick Hispanic accent that seemed to magnify her authority. “I will not allow my son to swim in the depths of death.” She thought the island was lovely to look at from a distance. She hated how Dominic sometimes swam there. A raft would only encourage him. She cursed the lake, calling it, “La Muerta.” His papa said that she used the feminine because she loved and hated the water the way she loved and hated her own mamá. His papa went to her and tried to hold her, but she pushed him away. She did not want to hear his explanation. She did not want her son sailing across the surface of La Muerta. But it was not Dominic’s usual mamá who was thinking and speaking then. Her fears of the storm from the night before were still in her, still stirring her up. Her fears were telling her what to say and how to be.
His papa waited three days before speaking with her again about building a raft from the fallen trees. That day was bright and sunny so she was happy and making plans. No storm was in her then. So she said that they could, but her consent was reluctant and provisional.
“The backdoor will remain open,” she said, “and I will sit at the dining table so that I can watch you two building the raft and sailing over death.” But she never did fulfill her end of the compromise. She sat at the dining table. But instead of watching them, she worked on a jigsaw puzzle so that her mind would stop thinking about all the possibilities that could have happened if she had never left her home in Mexico.
His papa built the raft with a strength that Dominic feared and idolized. He severed the foliage. He sheared every trunk free of branches. He shaved the finely fibrous bark from the roots. He rolled the trunks alongside each other and he cut the ends to equal lengths. He lashed the logs together with the bark strips. He cleaved notches at each end of the raft and inset thinner trunks for crosspiece support.
“Like Huckleberry Finn,” he said to Dominic.
“Yeah, like Huckleberry Finn, papa,” Dominic said.
“You’re a good helper, boy.”
“Thanks, papa.”
“You’ll make a good husband someday because good husbands are good helpers.”
“Okay, papa.”
It was a day Dominic would never forget. He helped his papa improved the raft’s old design by screwing in stainless steel plates that would keep the raft tighter together than the lashes. His papa taught him catchwords for working with screws. “Righty tighty. Lefty loosey.” He loved it! He laughed and repeated the catchwords as he twisted the screwdriver clockwise, driving the screws deeper into the wood. “Righty tighty! Righty tighty!”
The Door to Heaven returned. His papa saw it first. He had been smiling, but his smile sagged as slow as melting wax into a grave expression. Dominic was kneeling over the raft. His papa had asked him to tighten the screws of the stainless steel plates that they had fastened to one side of the raft. They would install more plates to the other side next. He was proud to be his papa’s helper. Now he put all his strength into his work. The screw was turning, tightening, getting harder and harder to twist into place. He did not want to disappoint his papa by any weakness. “Righty tighty,” he was saying excitedly, hoping his papa could hear his grit. “Righty tighty. Righty tighty.” But his papa was not responding. He had stopped working. The change felt strange. It was like when the weather suddenly shifts from a sunny day to stormy skies. Dominic did not like change. He stopped tightening the last screw. He looked up and searched his papa’s face. His papa was staring into the distance with an expression that Dominic did not recognize. He felt uncomfortable. He shifted where he knelt. “Papa?” His papa did not reply. He was sitting still although his thick mustache was moving slightly. He seemed to be talking to himself. He was whispering: “No, not yet… Yes, I do, but not yet… Please, I need more time… Please… Please, he needs more time… Don’t do this to him… He’s just a boy…” Dominic looked at the place where his papa was looking. He saw the same thing he had seen a few nights before during that powerful storm. The thing was standing once more like some ancient monolith of a long forgotten people. Yet it was only a door — the door to a house that could not be seen with the eyes or heard with the ears or fully felt in the heart. It was the Door to Heaven. The white frame was brighter than Dominic remembered. The brown wood of the door seemed darker. It was a pleasant and dreadful sight.
His papa shook his head and pinched his eyes. They were wet and red. Tears streamed down over his cheekbones. He rubbed them into his skin. He cupped his large hand over his mouth. His calloused fingers pressed indentations into his cheeks. His papa took his hand away from his mouth and he forced himself to smile at his son. Dominic wondered if he had done something wrong. The confusion made him panic. He returned his attention to the raft and he continued tightening the last screw. “Righty tighty,” he said. “Righty tighty.”
His papa spoke to him and his voice was choked. “Be a good boy for your mamá.”
“Righty tighty.”
His papa placed his hand on Dominic’s. His hand was so large that his own two hands were swallowed up in the grip. The work stopped.
“Be a good helper,” his papa said to him.
“Yessir, papa.”
“Bake her buñuelos when she is sad.”
“Yessir.”
&n
bsp; “Do you remember the recipe?”
“Yessir.”
“Good boy.”
His papa seized him and pulled him close and hugged him. A bear hug. A father and son hug. A goodbye hug. Dominic could not breathe but the power and affection felt good. He felt broken when his papa let him go. His papa nodded at the Door to Heaven. “Ready,” he said. Dominic gathered his courage and he went from his papa to the Door to Heaven. He still had the screwdriver in his hand. He walked around the Door to Heaven and he studied it the way his papa had taught him. It looked like an ordinary door. He touched the brown wood. He slid his palm up the white frame. The finish was very smooth and better craftsmanship than that of his papa. That surprised him. The Door to Heaven did not have a knocker, only a brass doorknob covered in verdigris. A face like an old man in the doorknob smiled at him. His eyes had heavy lids with bags and dark circles in the brass.
“Are you afraid?” the old face in the doorknob asked. The voice was deep and gravelly.
“You’re only a door,” Dominic replied. “How could I be afraid of you?”
“People are afraid of doors.”
“No I am not.”
“You might be when you are older.”
“Mamá says that.”
“Doors can be scary to adults.”
“The dark scares me.”
“Me too.”
“You don’t look scary,” Dominic said to the Door to Heaven.
“From the mouths of children,” the old face in the doorknob replied.
“Are people afraid of you?”
“More often than not.”
“Why are doors so scary?”
“Because of what might be on the other side.”
“What’s on the other side of you?”
“Heaven.”