Spring should have been an epiphany, full of grace and promise, but God was not smiling. Neither was Jonathan.

A gauzy sun was scattering what was left of morning fog.  Beams of sunlight were vibrating with micro-grains of pollen, beginning like pinpoints, expanding, bending downward and outward, waving through the oak canopy.  They stopped to focus on one or two winded daffodils; emerging peach blossoms testing the air; a spastic wasp, the color of a new penny, looking for building materials.

Spring had always been his season.  He had always eagerly anticipated his time of new beginnings, but there was now a heavy dullness in him, squeezing him like a vise, an emasculation of the simplest of joys.

From his backyard near the top of the hill, Jonathan commanded a view of both ends of the street.  With arrested sensitivity, he watched as vapors, rising like incense, lifted from the tin roof of the church on the opposite hill.

His mother, framed by the window over the kitchen sink, watched him.  Worry creased her forehead.  He could feel her stare without facing or acknowledging her.  He knew the liturgy of a thousand mornings.  Splashing and scraping with a quick baptism into the clean water of the rinsing pan and a gentle clinking against other plates as they were made to stand at orderly attention in the slotted drain pan.  The staccato clinking was louder than usual.  The dishwasher was distracted, sending non-verbal communications that spoke of agitation and conflict.

“We can talk about it, you know.  There’s no future in being a mute.”  The invitation came from inside as she found her voice when the last plate found its place.  They had not spoken in twenty-four hours and for three meals. He didn’t answer, but moved in the direction of the awakening crabapple tree and a mound of new, red earth shimmering with bits of mica. An irreverent breeze during the night had scattered a covering of memorial blossoms.  He squatted on the ground, retrieving the drying flowers and arranging them individually, methodically on the site.

“You are just going to have to grow up, you know,” she had said as they stood the day before in the barn and stared down at Tiger and her three offspring.  “Life is not easy.  A person that can’t make hard decisions has no future.  Since your father left, life has been nothing but hard decisions.  Tough times make hard people.  Hard scrapple survives.  I’ve never been one to avoid difficult choices, and I have never lied to you, as you well know.”

How well he knew.  He remembered his Dad starting a fire in the living room fireplace on a distant Christmas morning before dawn, clanking a poker against an andiron, and announcing toward the room where Jonathan was still in bed.

“It’s Santa Claus, Jon.  He’s just leaving and he’s left you a bicycle.”

“Frank,” his mother said from her bedroom, “don’t tell that child lies.  You know what we talked about.  There is no Santa Claus.  I won’t have lies told in this house.”

“That’s your problem, Jenny.  Sometimes a little hope, a little magic is worth a lie.  Some folks find more comfort in lies than they do in the truth.  At least in the kind of truth you tell.  Your truth is full of lies.”

Jonathan sank deeper into the mattress and muffled his head with the three top quilts until the shouting back and forth had ended.  Later over a breakfast of oatmeal, while his father was outside chopping firewood, he broached the subject.

“Len and the other kids believe in Santa Claus.  Why don’t we?”

“Well, because it isn’t true.  You can’t build a life based on lies and magic.”  She brushed toast crumbs from the oil cloth to the floor.  “Bearded man in a red suit pulled around in a sleigh by flying reindeer.  Tooth fairies putting money under children’s pillows.  A bunch of rubbish.  That’s your father’s problem.  If there was a Santa Claus or fairies he’d be a richer man now instead of stacking lumber at the mill.”

Jonathan talked to Len next door as he watched him push a new Christmas tractor through the red dust of the construction site he was building.  “He’s not real, you know.”

“I know.  I saw them bring in the tractor and hide it in the closet under the stairs.  The whole thing’s a crock.”

“Then why do you tell them you still believe?”

“Cause they said that if I didn’t believe I wouldn’t get anything for Christmas.”

“But you’re telling a lie.”

Len shrugged his shoulders.  “Jesus will always forgive me for lying, but he won’t give me a tractor.”

Tiger was a presumptuous, uninvited guest.  Knowing that a change was imminent, she had selected the barn and the top of a half-empty feed sack for the birthing place and nursery.  Jonathan’s mother was not totally satisfied with the arrangement.  “Can’t hurt anything, I guess,” she said, observing the swollen cat’s teats already dripping milk, “as long as she makes her own way.  Plenty of mice in here to be caught and lots of shrews in the field.  But she’ll have to pull her own weight.  I wouldn’t want to find any milk or anything else missing from the refrigerator.”

The birthing was on a cool Saturday morning.  Jonathan watched in fascination as three mouse-like beings, emitting halos of steam, slid out covered in goop.  Tiger set about licking them until they were clean. When air-dried, they were transformed into fur balls with large mouths not content unless they were suckling.  Tiger was a dutiful mother for all but one.  After cleaning it, she pushed it aside and gave her full attention to the other two.  Although the shunned kitten cried for the same motherly interest, Tiger ignored its pleas.

Jonathan’s mother picked up the rejected kitten, turning it over and examining it closely, running her finger over its emaciated, languid body and finally holding it at eye level while staring at its face.  “Well, it’s a boy, but it’s not going to live.”

“Why?”

“Looks like a cleft palate.”

“Cleft what?”

“Cleft palate.  Its mouth is deformed.  It can’t eat that way.  The mother knows it can’t live and she’s not going to waste any time on it or give it any attention.”

“Couldn’t we take him to a cat doctor?”

“Cat doctor?  Pay for a cat doctor when we can’t even afford a doctor for ourselves?  I’m still paying the dentist for the last tooth he pulled.”

Jonathan mentally rehearsed a list of rebuttals, but he knew it would be useless.  He looked his mother in the eyes.

“Jonathan, that’s nature.  That’s life.  And it isn’t always pretty. A ton of fairy dust won’t make it different.”

“So, what are we going to do?”

They went into the kitchen.  She struck a match to a burner and heated water in the tea kettle to just above tepid and poured it into a coffee can. They carried it back to the barn.  Without a word she picked up the rejected kitten and plunged him head first into the warm water until his entire body was submerged.  Bubbles floated to the top in a rapid crescendo until the sound was throbbing in Jonathan’s head.

“You’ve killed him, you’ve killed him!  What’s the matter with you?  You’ve killed everything.  You killed Santa Claus.  You killed Daddy. You’re a cold-hearted killer.  Do you hear?”  He ran from the barn.

“Jonathan,” but he was gone.

His mother knelt beside him and the mound of dirt.  He felt her hand on his shoulder.

“Maybe we should have talked about it first.  Can you forgive me?”

They sat in silence.  The wind rustled the blossoms.

“Mama, do animals go to heaven?”

She started to speak, but hesitated as she smoothed the top of the mound and rearranged the blossoms.

“I would like to think that if animals are important to make us happy in heaven, then they could be there.  At least we can hope.”