Read Online The World More Full of Weeping by Robert J. Wiersema - Free Book Online Page A

tell. I wouldn’t have asked
otherwise. But you had to go home.”
    He didn’t say anything, remembering the sound of her
voice. He hadn’t heard it in more than thirty years, but it was
so familiar to him he was amazed he could have forgotten.
    â€œI wanted to stay,” he said, lost in the memories of his time
with her. She had shown him worlds he could only imagine,
worlds he had lost when he stepped away from her.
    â€œI know.”
    â€œIs . . . Is Brian with you?” The words came hard, and he
already knew the answer.
    â€œYes.”
    Jeff felt an unaccountable relief. Brian wasn’t lost. Brian
was just . . . gone.
    â€œDid you ask him to stay with you?” His voice broke on
the whispered words.
    She looked at him.
    â€œNo,” she said.
    His heart clutched at a final hope.
    â€œHe asked me.”
    A sob rose in his throat, but he pushed it back down.
    He remembered the places she had taken them. The air
was so pure, the light so bright, everything outlined with a
subtle glow.
    And he knew he had spent the years since he had turned
away from her, spent his whole life, in a world of greys and
half-measures, the reality around him a pale shadow of the
worlds he had tasted. The worlds he had lost.
    â€œIs . . . is he safe?”
    When she smiled, the clearing seemed to glow around
them. “He’s blessed.”
    The words caught at his breath and tore it away. “Be . . .
Take good care of him,” he said, in a voice hollow and
powerless.
    â€œHe’ll come to no harm with me,” she said, and though
the words were soothing, they did not take away his pain.
    When she stepped away, turned back to the forest and
faded into the green and brown, Jeff Page fell to his knees,
his back heaving with broken sobs as he cried for what was
lost. For what he knew would not return.

    After breakfast the Sunday morning he disappeared,
Brian had gone up to his room. The sound of the back door
closing as his father went out to his shop echoed through
the house.
    He had barely slept the night before, too filled with
excitement, with thoughts of the day — the days — ahead.
    He unzipped his knapsack and set it on his bed for
filling. The microscope in its case took up most of the space.
He slid the plant guide in beside it, and a sweater. He didn’t
think he’d need clothes, but he was a bit worried that he
might be cold at night.
    Looking around the room, he tried to figure out what
else he might need. His compass. A magnifying glass. The
picture of the three of them — he and his mother and his
father all together — that had been taken at Disneyland.
The slingshot his father had given him.
    The thought of his father made Brian pause. He
wasn’t mad at his father. Carly was right: he just didn’t
understand.
    He thought of leaving him a note, but he had no idea
what he would write. He knew his father and mother would
be sad or scared, but there were no words to explain what
he was doing, where he was going, what it all meant.
    As he zipped up his backpack, he took a last look around
his room. The books on his shelves. The posters on his
walls. The schoolbooks on his desk.
    As he walked down the stairs, he trailed his fingers
along the cool walls, listened to the echo of his footsteps.
    He took one last look around the kitchen, at the table
where he and his father ate every meal, at the dishes on the
counter, at the toast on his plate.
    He slipped on his boots and coat, and closed the back
door for the last time.
    He stopped in front of the open door to the shop, and
looked inside. The smell of oil tickled his nose, the way it
always did. His father was under the car, his sticking-out
legs the only part of him that was visible.
    He didn’t speak. Tears streaming down his face, he
raised his hand in farewell, and turned away, setting out
across the field for the woods.

    Jeff Page never told anyone what had happened to him
in the woods, either