Like Enoch

Chapter 1

Mark glided the little toy car back and forth along the windowsill where his chin rested on top of his right arm. He had been kneeling there for some time either staring at his car or out the window down into the yard. He wouldn’t admit it, but he really wanted to be outside with his cousins and his uncle playing touch football. Of course, that would have made the teams uneven. Perhaps his uncle had really wanted him to stay up in his room so that things could be the way they used to be, and there wouldn’t be the problem of uneven teams.

The “way they used to be” meant before he had come to live with them six months previously, after his parents were killed in an accident. He’d been in the same accident, but Mark had miraculously come through only needing stitches and some care for several rather nasty bumps and bruises. His aunt and uncle had termed his condition “miraculous”; he had not felt that way. He should have died with his daddy and mommy. In fact, he had never told anyone, but the whole accident had been his fault.

He had been in the hospital until the time of the funeral. Uncle Nate and Aunt Ruthann had driven the long trip from their home out west to eastern Pennsylvania and arrived the evening before the service. His uncle sat with him in the room all night long, giving his grandparents a rest. Mark had been grateful. Closing his eyes, he pretended that the heavy breathing and the strong presence close by was his daddy’s. It helped a little, but it hurt more when he opened them to see his uncle instead.

In reality, Mark remembered little of the funeral. His relatives, including his father’s brothers with their families, had stood around him crying. He had sat between both sets of grandparents at the graveside. That much he did remember. There had been a lot of hugging, too. Those two caskets before him held his daddy and mommy; he knew with his mind, but his heart wouldn’t accept it. Maybe that was why he didn’t cry. Not one tear was shed. To this day, he had not cried. Mark knew he should have, and he felt guilty for not crying about his parents dying.

For a week after the funeral, he had stayed with his grandparents, as did his uncle, aunt, and cousins. He didn’t remember much of that time either. At the end of it, his uncle had loaded their luggage in the 1956 Chevy suburban, along with some of Mark’s things, both inside and strapped on top. Then, after a drive that seemed insufferably long, Mark found himself at their home, his home, they’d said. When his uncle had gotten the brand new suburban a few months before, he’d sent a picture of it with the family beside the shining vehicle to his daddy. His daddy had given a long, admiring whistle and made over the stunning, new, peach-colored body and white-topped model with its powerful engine. Mark had longed to ride in it, picturing himself sitting in the front seat next to his uncle, but never had he dreamed his first ride would be to his new “home” after his parents had been buried. In some ways, that first ride was his guilt in metal and tires. If he hadn’t wished so hard that he could ride in it, or maybe even wished so hard that they could have one of their own just like his cousins….

At first, Mark tried to pretend being at his aunt and uncle’s was no different than the last time he had been to their house for a visit, which had been the previous Christmas with his parents. Then, the two-story house on an old farm surrounded by fields had been better than any vacation spot. The fields to the back of his uncle’s property were like the untamed frontier, since the land to the left climbed gently into low hills that hid an old quarry from sight, and to the right, rolled mildly into hills that eventually met a ridge.

Woods decorated all of the area in between, filling it with a variety of trees, creeks, and numerous, natural crevices and little caves waiting to be explored. The front of the house opened to a wide yard scattered with more trees. A long lane led to a country road that had little traffic. Mark thought it was the best place in the world. Though he didn’t like that his uncle and aunt lived so far away, his heart nearly burst with pleasure at the thought of his uncle owning such a home. He loved whenever his family could be with them, and to Mark, it was always too soon to leave.

They had stayed two weeks, and it had been a time filled of silly and special holiday memories. Being the youngest in the “stair steps” of the boys—he seven, Peter eight, Luke nine, and Paul ten—he’d been the center of attention either in play or affection from his aunt and uncle or his daddy and mommy. While his daddy did not neglect his three nephews, his uncle and daddy seemed to take turns having Mark to themselves, whether sledding down a hill, helping him learn to ice skate, or sitting in one of their laps by the fire cracking nuts as they told stories to the boys. He’d reveled in having constant playmates at his disposal also. Paul, Luke, and Peter, but especially Peter, had been just as excited to have him as he was to be there, and they’d spent hours playing or talking late into the night while lying in their sleeping bags in the den. The boys had wanted to spend every moment they could together, and their parents had agreed they could sleep in the den most of the nights of the visit, with the exception of Christmas Eve and Christmas night. Mark spoke of those times up until the worst day of his life.

Upon Mark’s arrival three months after Christmas, the same house and land almost seemed frightening, especially when his uncle had referred to it as Mark’s new home. Though he didn’t say so, inside he’d replied, No, it’s not.

Four months into his stay as Nate and Ruthann Hepler’s new son, he’d been fairly successful pretending he was there for a long visit like the extended stays he’d read about when kids would go to their grandparents’ home for the summer, except he was with his aunt and uncle. He played, laughed, acted silly, and worked as if he were on a visit, too. Evenings after chores or Saturday afternoons would be spent in the basement with his cousin Peter and his uncle playing with the giant Lionel train set they’d assembled. While watching one of the locomotives with its many cars zip along the track under the signal bridge or past the depot, it was easy to pretend that being in the cool cellar at his uncle’s side was no different than Christmas. They had spent so much time together there while his daddy played board games upstairs with his cousins Paul and Luke. His aunt decided to complete his schooling at home, so that he wouldn’t have to adjust to a new school so late in the year. Maybe she could tell how frightened he was at the prospect. Somehow going to his cousins’ school would end the façade of his presence at their home as only a visit. Regardless of the reason for his aunt and uncle’s decision, he was thankful, and he spent the days once he’d finished his lessons riding his bike along the lane or up and down the country road close to the house as soon as the weather permitted. Din, their German Shepherd, loped along with him. In fact, no one would have guessed by how he acted those first four months that he had just been orphaned.

The last two months, however, were a different story.