The Door to Heaven Read online

  The voice of the old face in the doorknob was gravelly and soft. “You’ve grown up.”

  “Yes,” Dominic replied, clenching his jaw.

  “But have you matured?”

  “I remember you.”

  “Good memory.”

  “I thought I made you up.”

  “What do you think now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “Angry.”

  “Is that all?”

  “It is enough.”

  “Perhaps,” the old face in the doorknob said, “but it is not all.”

  Dominic glared at the Door to Heaven. “Why are you here?”

  “To talk.”

  “About what?”

  “About why you’re here.”

  “Is that all?”

  “No.”

  “What else?”

  The old face in the doorknob smiled knowingly. “It’s best to go through one door at a time.”

  Dominic went out of his cave and went to the Door to Heaven. He stood before it, studying it as he had in his youth, though now with a more practiced eye. The Door to Heaven looked exactly the same. The brown wood still had the same worn yet well-loved look. The old face in the doorknob was still covered in verdigris. Yet the Door to Heaven had seemed so tall when he was a boy. Now it was just his size! The old face in the doorknob watched Dominic while he watched it. Neither said anything yet both spoke volumes. He walked around the Door to Heaven, trying to deconstruct it, but was quickly confused. Only the front had a doorknob. The frame had no screws or nails. There were no hinges holding the door in place. He felt strongly tempted to take the white frame apart and remove the doorknob and use the wood to fuel the fire of his anger and lonesomeness. But he turned around and went back to the awning. He fitted a joint together. He whispered his papa’s catchwords. “Righty tighty. Lefty loosey.”

  “You’ve built a little paradise here,” the old face in the doorknob said to him.

  “It is no Eden,” he said while he worked. He didn’t look at the Door to Heaven. He and his mamá were this way when they worked on puzzles together.

  “No, it’s no Eden,” the old face said. “You’re missing knowledge of good and evil. But then again, that was never given to you to begin with.”

  “How do you know what Eden looked like?” asked Dominic.

  “Perhaps I saw it from the outside,” the old face in the doorknob replied.

  “This is just a cave. It’s not perfect.”

  “Perfection is in the eye of the builder.”

  “This awning will keep out the rain.”

  “Rain feeds the earth with life.”

  “Not in a cave.”

  “You sound so sure.”

  “Papa always did.”

  “He is a good man.”

  “He was.”

  “His passing never took from him his goodness.”

  Dominic paused in his work to glance at the Door to Heaven. “Why are you here?” he asked and then went back to work.

  “Because,” the old face said, “I would like to speak with Mrs. King.”

  Dominic had not expected this. He stopped working. Through the corner of his eye he looked at the old face in the doorknob. “My neighbor?” he asked. “Why her?”

  The doorknob swiveled back and forth, as though being turned. Its facial expression made the movement seem like a shrug. “Why would a Door to Heaven speak with anyone?” the old face asked.

  “Is Mrs. King going to die?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Death brings new life. Remember the worms.”

  “Did you make my papa die?”

  “Doors don’t make things happen.”

  “Where did you take my papa?”

  “Doors don’t take anyone anywhere.”

  “But you appear and then people die.”

  “Doors open. Doors close. Things happen through doors.”

  “What things?”

  “Important things.”

  “What happens when someone goes through you?”

  “Life and death things.”

  “Why didn’t you appear to Mrs. King?” asked Dominic.

  “Sometimes people need help going through doors,” the old face in the doorknob said.

  “You want me to help you?”

  “She wants you to help her.”

  “She never said so.”

  “Have you listened to her?”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Bring her to me.”

  “To the island?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why does Mrs. King need help going through you?”

  “Because I’m not her Door to Heaven.”

  “Whose are you?”

  “Yours.”

  “Am I going to die?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tonight?”

  “No.”

  “When?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “Soon?”

  The old face smiled. “I don’t think so.”

  Dominic thought for a moment. “You say you’re my Door to Heaven,” he said. “So why did my papa go through you?”

  “You let him in.”

  “You mean I let him die.”

  “No. He died. And you helped him to Heaven.”

  “Now I have to help Mrs. King to Heaven?”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  The old face in the doorknob sighed. “Freedom. Predestination. These are such limited words.”

  “But why do I have to bring her here?”

  The old face in the doorknob studied Dominic before replying. “That is not the question you want to ask,” it finally said.

  Dominic was surprised at this remark. “What is the question I want to ask?”

  “You want to know why I didn’t appear in your backyard.”

  Now it was Dominic’s turn to study the Door to Heaven. The old face was right. He had not liked it when Eric Flu had come to his island, and he did not like it now that the Door to Heaven was here. Dominic felt that he could only share his island with the mallards. They never bothered him. They never made him think or leave his cave.

  “The answer to your question is this,” the old face said: “Your island, your cave, all of it, this is your Eden on earth.”

  “It is only an island.”

  “Paradise was not made to be horded.”

  “There is so much more to make here.”

  “You must share your happiness and give other people a chance to reject it. That is part of what it means to be made in the image and likeness of God.”

  Dominic closed his eyes. “How much longer does Mrs. King have?”

  “It won’t be long now.”

  Dominic looked at his hands. He was still holding the screwdriver. He wanted to go into his cave and lie near the fire and listen to the wood crackle and the sap pop and feel the good warmth. Now he did not feel safe. Bringing Mrs. King to the island would change much. She would die. Then more people would come to the island to see how she died and why she died and people would ask him questions. Dominic did not like to be asked questions. He wished the Door to Heaven had not appeared. He wished his papa were still alive. The choice he had been given was no choice. He knew what he had to do because he was not the kind of person who would not do it. He did not like that he knew this. And he wished that he would start working so that he could stop thinking.

  Dominic went back to his cave for a moment. He put out his campfire, set his tools in order, and put his screwdriver in his back pocket. He walked past the Door to Heaven toward his raft on the shore. He said nothing to the old face in the doorknob. He did not even look at it. He readied his raft and punted back to the mainland. He did not punt toward the inlet where he would hide his raft behind the juniper trees, but toward Mr. and Mrs. King�
��s house. The wind was cold on the water. He planned to tell Mrs. King to wear a heavy coat. He could see his house through the dark. But the sight of his house caught him off guard. The porch lights were on. They were never on. Why are the porch lights on, Dominic wondered. Narrowing his eyes to look through the dark, Dominic saw people on his back porch. He could see his mamá. A man was with her. A young girl was with him. His mamá had not told him about guests coming over. She had never invited guests to their house before. Why now? Dominic stopped punting. The raft drifted. Small choppy waves rocked the raft. He had learned long ago to punt standing up. He could balance even in rough winds and on turbulent water. But he felt uneasy now and he had to lower to his knees and grip the wooden planks. He thought of his papa. He took his screwdriver from his pocket. He tightened the metal plates along the edge of the raft. Each screw was still as tight as the day he and his papa had screwed them in place. It was a good raft. He wished he had something to tighten. He needed something to work on and fix.

  Dominic was near enough to his house to see movement on his back porch. His mamá had seen him. She knew he had sailed out to the island. She knew that he had not sunk the raft when she asked him to all those years ago. And now she was waving at him to come back home. Perhaps she had always known that he sailed out to Duck Island every night after a silent supper over a puzzle. Dominic stood on the raft. He had to concentrate to balance now. He continued punting to his house. His mamá with the man and the young girl remained on the back porch for a few more minutes. He was not close enough yet to see the man. Who was he? His mamá went back inside. The man followed her. The young girl lingered on the porch a little longer. She watched Dominic. He watched her. Who is she, he wondered.

  The starlight was bright that night. A half moon was over the forest. He could not remember the date. He could not tell whether the moon was a waxing crescent or a waning gibbous. He saw Cassiopeia and Orion and Ursa Major. He thought of how large the universe was and how small he was. And he wondered how Heaven could hold so much for such a long time — eternity with the girl on the porch and the whole universe. God shaped the atoms that make a grain of sand and a supernova. He felt better thinking about life in proportion. He looked at the porch again. The girl was gone.

  Dominic reached the mainland, dragged the raft ashore, and paused on the back porch before going inside his house. He spied through the glass door. The white puzzle was still on the dining table. His mamá had not finished it. He could not see her or the man. He looked for the girl but he could not see her either. He opened the back door. Laughter came from some other room. His mamá spoke in Spanish. A man’s voice replied in Spanish. His mamá and the man were speaking too fast for him. Dominic could only understand some of the conversation. He checked his back pocket. His screwdriver was still there. He walked into the house and went through the dining room and the kitchen. He walked along the hallway. He could not remember where his papa had sketched his designs along the walls, although he had never forgotten how they looked. He resisted the temptation to turn around and run from the house and go back to the island.

  Dominic entered the living room. His mamá’s hair was down and she was wearing makeup. She smiled in a way he had seen a few times before. The first was at that garage sale when she sold his papa’s things. She looked happy now. She had not looked this happy in a while. She was leaning toward the man over the arm of her chair. Her legs were crossed with her bare feet and painted toes pointing toward him. Dominic knew the man. He was from Mexico like her. His wife had died in a car accident. He had moved to the village when Dominic was young. The man had become a teacher at his school. He had convinced the school administrator that the school needed classes for advanced students. He was given an abandoned shed outside the school. He made it habitable. And a few students from each grade were selected to attend his classes. Some of his students graduated a year or two early and went on to college. They found success and rarely returned to the village. Now his classes were in the best rooms of the school and parents vied to have their children in his classes. Dominic was not one of those students. The man now looked at him and smiled. He seemed to show the same sincerity that his own papa once had. The man also had a similar mustache. He stood and extended his hand toward him and he spoke in a melodic baritone, “Buenas tardes, Señor.”

  The young girl beside the man was another student from his school. She had been in his classes for a year when they were younger. But the next year she had been removed and put into the advanced classes. She had been taught by this man ever since. Dominic remembered that she was the girl from the garage sale. She had been reading his Robinson Crusoe book and Dominic had snatched it from her. The girl had grown since then. She had black hair like his mamá, but the girl’s hair was longer. She was sitting up straight with her hands on her knees. She seemed uncomfortable. She was looking up at Dominic. She was not breathing. He had seen her many times in school but he had not looked at her until then. He stopped breathing also. The girl seemed so small yet she seemed to have so much power. She was like the sun and he was like the moon. She radiated. He reflected her light. She is beautiful, he thought because she made him feel happy and nervous at the same time. The man gestured toward the girl and he placed his hand on her shoulder.

  “Esta es mi hija,” he said proudly, “Pascala.”

  PASCALA

  Pascala would sit beside her papaito whenever Dominic’s mamá invited them over, which had been happening more often. Pascala never sat with Dominic because he would never sit with them. He never seemed happy that they had come over. If they were sitting on the couch, he would sit on the other side of the room. Pascala wrote in her journal that he always had something to work on, always kept his hands busy, his mind occupied. Her papaito would have long conversations in Spanish with Dominic’s mamá. She wondered if Dominic understood everything they said, and she wrote in her journal that she thought she understood more from the language of their bodies. Her papaito smelled like spices. His mamá wore makeup with her long black hair hanging over her shoulders. Her papaito brought flowers. His mamá hid her puzzles to prepare delicious meals. Their parents were like their peers, and not their friends.

  Pascala noticed that the more she and her papaito came over, the less Dominic stayed in the same room. Soon he began to go outside and work. He would make repairs on the roof during the day, or he would restore the back porch in the evening. He would bang his hammer loud enough to let everyone inside the house know that he had not gone far. Pascala also noticed that, as soon as she and her papaito were leaving, Dominic was just finishing his work. The more time passed, the later she and her papaito would leave, and the later they left, the longer Dominic would work outside, and the louder he would bang his hammer.

  Pascala hardly spoke with Dominic because he never spoke with her. She would speak to him although he would not look at her. But she did not mind. He had been acting no differently since the day she first saw him drawing at school, all alone on the playground, all those years ago. Leaving her inside alone with his mamá and her papaito, Pascala soon felt like a third wheel. They would talk to one another in Spanish while she wrote in her journal her thoughts and concerns for Ruth her angel to read. She did not dislike his mamá, and she wanted her papaito to be happy, but she had an urge to talk with someone who was going through what she was going through. She wanted to know if Dominic was thinking what she was thinking, or feeling what she was feeling. So she would leave her papaito alone with his mamá inside and she would go outside. I go to Dominic not to be with him, she wrote in her journal, but to be away from the other two kids falling in love, my papaito and his mamá.

  Pascala would walk around the house. Her angel Ruth would be with her, placing its hands on her shoulders and guiding her along the truest path. She would listen to the gentle breeze and she would think of the love of God. She would look out over the lake and think how wonderful it would be to have this lake in her own backyard. She would see ducks
flying overhead in formation to the island. She had not forgotten the island that she had seen Dominic drawing years ago when they were children. She had not forgotten the two figures he drew wrestling together.

  “Which figure was he?” she asked Ruth. “The darker or the lighter?”

  Pascala would spread out a blanket on the lawn beneath the sun. She would read her books. She would look through the corner of her eye at him working on the roof. She would sit cross-legged in a rocking chair on the porch during the evening. She would write in her journal her thoughts about the relationship blossoming between her papaito and his mamá. Ruth would read her thoughts in the journal, and the angel would pray to God, begging for grace to fill her with the gifts of understanding and wisdom. Pascala would describe in her journal that the qualities she saw in Dominic were not the qualities that she saw in others. Her guardian angel would smile on her for having grown so much. She would watch the way he worked on the front porch. Ruth would whisper in her ear the worth of virtue. She would marvel at his concentration in his work. He seemed to have such dedication in tightening loose screws. She could hear him repeating something beneath his breath, “Righty tighty, lefty loosey,” and it would charm her. He is different, she wrote in her journal and she wondered why she liked the way he was not like the other boys in school. He was not like her papaito. He did not ask questions. He had muscular arms and he never shaved off his stubble. His chin was broad and powerful. His eyes were deep brown and she liked to look at them. But she had to look away whenever he looked at her because she was afraid that he would see her thoughts.

  His mamá began inviting Pascala and her papaito over to the house every day. And with each new visit her papaito acted more at home. He would nap on the couch. He would express his worry about the future. He would remove his shoes and socks to walk barefoot on the rugs. Pascala explained in her journal to Ruth that her papaito was more different around Dominic’s mamá than he was around other women. With each new visit Pascala started to enjoy being outside near Dominic. She wondered if he enjoyed the same with her. Sometimes she caught him looking at her. Other times he caught her looking at him. The more she visited, and the more she sat on the back porch where Dominic worked, the closer he would move his work toward her.