On Raspberry Lane

By David Xavier

A throwback to the literary Golden Age.
A feel-good story that has made readers laugh and cry, and revisit an America of fond memories.

The Chapel boys would grow up in the middle-class suburban shadows of Raspberry Lane. A starter home, a nice job, four children and a happy domestic life, Jack and Lisa Chapel have built the all-American dream. As life and tragedy happens, rarely to the script of dreams, the Chapel boys are shaped and shipped in realistic drama, left to lean upon each other, and the strings of family tested.

On Raspberry Lane is as compassionate as it is unforgiving, as uplifting as it is heartbreaking, an exploration into the worn and hopeful corners of Americana.

Get the story now, live with the characters tonight.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Xavier
• Release date: Sep 6, 2019

Book preview

On Raspberry Lane

David Xavier

To all who have always wished to write,

a great novel burning inside them…

The loving actions of Jack Chapel – the large hand patting his daughter’s back as he leaned over the crib, the fatherly kiss on the sleeping baby’s cheek – would always suffice for saying the word. His three boys stayed and watched, their faces at the crib bars, as their father turned out the small lamp and left them in the dim room with the door cracked.

What’s her name again? Graham said.

It’s Hannah, Rudy said. It’s Hannah Chapel, like us.

Tee-tee.

Wade was the youngest of the boys and could not say the word ‘sister.’ Tee-tee was the sound his tongue made tapping at teeth.

No, don’t turn on the lights, Rudy whispered.

I can’t see, Graham said.

Rudy ran to flick the switch back down. What are you doing? Get down. He grabbed Graham’s shirttail. She’s too little.

I just want to see better, Graham said. He hooked a leg over the top, and Rudy gave him another tug and the rail came down. Graham crawled out from under, rubbing his head and wincing away the pain. When Hannah began to cry, the older boys ran out, shoulders bumping the doorjamb in their scramble.

Tee-tee, Wade said again, his fingers on his little teeth, and curled up in the crib with his baby sister until she soothed herself back to sleep.

Being the youngest of the brothers, Wade was the most protected. Rudy and Graham kept him under their watch. A collared dog once nipped too close at Wade’s feet, and Rudy and Graham chased it home with a fence slat and a handful of rocks. When the dog owner scolded the boys, Rudy swung the fence slat until it shattered against the owner’s front door, and Graham threw rocks through the front windows.

Now that protection went to Hannah, and Wade became one of the protectors.

It was a trait they picked up by watching their father. He always walked ahead of the family, his back straight and shoulders wide, his legs cantilevered at his hips, as if clipped on, and the boys tried to imitate his walk behind him. In church they leaned forward in the pew to get a glimpse of their father, his lifted chin and upright posture, his quiet disposition and warm smile when he shook hands around him. He had a naturally resonate voice that seemed to vibrate the window-stained church walls with hymns. The boys tried to imitate this voice too. A voice of authority.

You listen to your mother, Jack Chapel told his boys many times, crouching to their level with his hands covering their shoulders.

Yes, sir, dad, but Graham was the one who–

Ah-ah, I said you listen to your mother.

Yes, sir.

The protection of three older brothers meant Hannah would never be ridiculed by the pointing fingers of childhood, at least not for long. The boys took their job seriously, although unconsciously, and their mother too became an object of their defense. They would stand on the doorstep as a deliveryman reached over their heads to get their mother’s signature. He was watched carefully, every move, as their mom juggled Hannah and the clipboard, trying to scratch out her name.

Nice work, boys, the deliveryman would say. He squatted and put a fist to Rudy’s shoulder. Who needs a watchdog when you’ve got these warriors, right?

But the boys kept silent, squinting into the sun, and when the big postal truck started up again, they chased it, running along the sidewalk, past the well-manicured green lawns and pastel cutter homes with matching mailboxes, throwing handfuls of river stones as the truck rolled away in a black cloud of exhaust.

Inside, boys, Lisa Chapel called out. Get inside this minute, and she held the door open as each one ran past her. Wade still had stones in his hands. They scattered on the hardwood floor, and he followed his brothers straight through the house and out the back door.

Lisa Chapel had her three boys in three years. Wade’s head was off the charts at birth. Hannah came later and gave her a gap of recovery. At twenty-nine she believed she had married Jack late.

She wasted no time, women whispered outside as they watched the family walk across the church parking lot, Jack Chapel leading the way and the three boys walking stiffly behind him. Lisa brought up the rear and adjusted a blanket to keep Hannah’s head warm from the same breeze that threatened her own Sunday dress. That’s why she’s so skinny now. She just had a fourth child and look at her waist. Pauline Crawford was on the pill for three years and look how fat she’s become.

She met Jack Chapel at a car dealership, Motor Mike’s Dodge. He didn’t sell her a car. She was there to get her car serviced. The first time he saw her she was arguing at the service counter, and later he drove her home in the dealer shuttle. He was working part-time, running around the parking lot inventory, washing cars and driving customers while he worked two other jobs: an overnight grocery stocker at the only small grocer left in town, Johnson’s Pick-n-Save, and his hopeful career as a field reporter for KTVM Channel Eleven News.

He gave a few reports a week, on mindless news stories like the trail of sediment the rainstorm left on the bridge, or the rise in stray dogs being euthanized at the humane society. It was all working toward a primetime spot as an investigative journalist, a promotion that seemed to go over his head to the next in line every time.

Jack Chapel was a charismatic newsman, a creative writer, and handsome enough. But he didn’t film well. He had a distracting squint that multiplied and spread down his nose. By the time he wrapped up and signed off on camera, his face was in a painful grimace. He also drew out his vowels, displacing viewers from the cozy Midwest. But he wasn’t aware of these flaws and kept hustling to the scene.

In the meantime, he put in his time and worked the necessary jobs to pay his bills. Nobody watched the mid-afternoon news reports, and he was relieved when people didn’t recognize him. Every customer he drove from the dealership he avoided eye contact with and his hand went to his face, like a reflex, when they looked at him. People had commented on his recognizable chin all his life.

He had seen the name Lisa Dotter printed on the customer sheets, and he had watched her point a finger across the service desk and turn on a heel.

These people don’t care a thing about other people’s time, she said in the passenger seat, checking her eyes in the visor mirror. "They keep pushing it out another day another day another day, you know – you know, I don’t have another day."

Picked a windy day to be messing with car trouble.

She shut the visor and folded her hands on her lap. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean you. What was your name?

Jack, he said. Was and is and maybe will be forever. He smiled but kept his eyes on the road while Lisa looked his profile over. She had never seen such a large face before, not overly large, with features that seemed made for calmly delivering catastrophic details of a death to family members in a hospital waiting room. Or the happy news of a birth. She thought he looked like a doctor, although he could use a restful night of sleep by the looks of it. She had never seen the mid-afternoon KTVM Channel Eleven News.

It’s not your fault, she said. It’s the – take a left on Raspberry Lane – it’s the service agent’s fault for not fixing it correctly the first time. I know it’s not your fault.

I never said it was.

It’s a simple piece for the air-conditioner and a girl can’t be expected to go all summer without an air-conditioner.

Uh-huh.

I mean it’s just a small fix and most people who have air-conditioning should be able to use it properly.

Mm.

Well, I do appreciate you taking me home.

"It’s my job. We’ll get you on the road if we have to give you a car, he laughed quietly and added in a mumble, That’s the Motor Mike promise."

I just don’t see how a person can go a single day without a car these days. This is Raspberry here. Just follow the curve. Hopefully they’ll have my car done soon.

Some people don’t sweat the small things.

Lisa Dotter looked at him. It’s not that I sweat the small things. It’s that I like things to be done correctly.

He nodded and blinked away his fatigue, keeping any response under his lip. It had been a particularly tiring week for him, and he didn’t much care to hear more of Lisa Dotter’s problems, so he kept himself quiet. But then she turned toward the window and crossed her arms.

Roll with the punches, ma’am, he said, adjusting the vent. It’ll make life a whole lot easier.

She turned to him. And I like for people not to be so judgmental.

So do I.

"Could have fooled me. And do I look like a ma’am to you?"

No, ma’am.

She fiddled with her things and yanked at the seatbelt. "You people are all cut from the same cloth. You’re doing your job by the skin of your teeth without a care in the world for other people’s time or concern."

He leaned over the wheel. Which house is it?

You can let me out here. I don’t care to be in this car another minute with you, and I really don’t care to have you know which house is mine. If you took a moment to have a decent, understanding conversation with a person now and again you might be able to sleep at night. Oh, I see the bags under your eyes. How does it feel to treat people like dirt, ignoring them as just another ticket on the wall, hm? I said stop here.

She slammed the door and caught her polka dot dress. She slammed it again and marched down the sidewalk, under the rustling maple trees, into a breeze that made her pin down her dress with both arms. She turned once with a gust of wind, pulling her purse back onto her shoulder and fighting her dress to her knees, and she looked through her mask of blown hair to make sure he was not watching her. She pulled her dress into one fist and cleared her eyes with the other hand. He was watching. And he was…laughing.

They began dating two weeks later. Jack invited her to the bowling alley the first time, and Lisa invited Jack to watch her sing the second time.

You sing?

Does that surprise you?

He stopped and looked her over, his hands in his pockets. I don’t suppose it does. I figured you to play an instrument, is all.

She gave him a sidelong look and raised a finger and an eyebrow. When you can sing, you don’t need an instrument. Then she took his hands in hers. So, you’ll come?

I’ll be there.

And Jack Chapel was front pew at St Augustine’s Catholic Church that Sunday. Lisa saved him a seat next to her mother and father and sister, Wendy, who could not help but notice Jack squirming in his seat.

He looked as though that was the first time he’d ever been to church. He didn’t know any of the songs or responses, and when we were supposed to kneel, he went to stand.

"Maybe it was his first time, Lisa said. The important thing is that he’s going now."

They stayed out all night, as long as Jack had time for before his grocery shift. They went to the movies, where Jack fell asleep in the chair and lurched at the loud noises, or they talked over ice cream malts, or they sat on the hood of his car and watched the shooting stars. The first night he drove her home he stopped at the corner of Raspberry Lane.

Should I let you out here? he asked with a smile.

Oh, you’re so mean, she said and she hit him on the shoulder. I’m so embarrassed about that.

But he did drive her home, where they sat in the driveway and she stopped short his embrace with a finger to his lips before it became too much. After that he walked her along the flagstones all the way to the step of the small, two-bedroom house she was renting on laboratory wages, where they made a habit of long, goodnight kisses in the dark. She would come back out the door and embrace him again just before he hopped off the steps for the night and headed to the empty shelves of Johnson’s Pick-n-Save Grocery store where he hummed to himself under the dim fluorescent lights.

I think it’s perfectly respectable what you’re doing, Lisa told him of his side jobs. Stocking shelves and driving customers.

Respectable? What’s so respectable about it? The highlight of my day is finding forty-three cents on the customer’s seat.

You know what I mean. Most people wouldn’t have the patience or persistence to hold out for their dream job.

And she set up the timer to record every KTVM Channel Eleven News mid-afternoon broadcast. She soon had a box filled with recordings of his pieces, never having the time to watch all of them, although she gave it her best effort and enjoyed seeing him deliver his lines confidently in front of the camera.

Why, you’re a natural, Jack. A born natural.

Jack wasn’t sure if it was patience and persistence that guided him. He simply had no other alternative. He was a good journalist, a decent broadcaster, but he had no other ambitions to distract his path.

He soon began to go straight to Lisa’s house after work, where he let himself in with the spare key she had made for him, grab a quick nap, and wait for Lisa. She worked at the Midwest Horticulture Labs as an ecologist, a profession she had sweated for five years in the classrooms of Nebraska Wesleyan University for, perfecting the minute details of germination and incubation. He always heard her car pulling into the driveway and met her at the door. She hardly got in the door and out of her white lab coat before Jack and her bumped against the hallway walls on their way to the bedroom, and soon after, they lay staring up at the ceiling with glistening skin.

I can’t do this, Jack.

I’d say you did just fine.

No. You are just awful. I mean, I’m a Catholic. It would be shameful if we were to…well, it’s shameful now. We’re not even engaged, much less married.

Of course. It’s a shameful act outside of marriage. Only a Godless heathen would commit such a sin, but here we are, we’re not Godless, you’ve never missed a Sunday in your life, and it’s happened. He rolled up. It might happen again.

She put a finger to his lips. Don’t joke about it. I’m serious.

I know, baby. But listen. Everyone our age is working out the same problem. We’ll just be careful. You know, we’ll – we’ll use something and it’ll be all right.

She looked at him. I can’t do that either.

Do what?

The something. I can’t do the something.

He fell into a sigh and she took long blinking looks around the ceiling, waiting for him to speak. Then the mattress bounced and he was up on one elbow again.

Well, between the act and the something, which one’s the worse one?

She came home one day and kept her white coat on. Jack closed the door behind her and took her by the elbow and the small of her back to the living room.

What’s wrong? Did you get fired? What happened?

Jack, would it be so awful if we had to get married?

Of course not. I suppose I’d have to call and cancel all my dates, and I haven’t yet had a moment to argue your father into allowing it, but–

Jack.

He squared himself with her and put a knuckle under her chin. Of course, baby. No, it wouldn’t be so awful if we were to get married.

"No…I mean, if we had to."

They had a small wedding that month and later told friends and family that Rudy was born premature. At nine pounds, three ounces, they had to subtract a few pounds when telling others.

He just looks so big, Mrs Dotter said. Mr Dotter held his grandson high at the baptism, into the painted, morning sunrays slanting across the pews.

He’s quickly catching up, eh, my boy? he told Jack Chapel. I’d say he’s back on track with no trouble at all. Might be an athlete. Or a president. Just look at those serious eyes.

They took a mortgage and bought the place. The UHaul truck sat in front of the small white house on Raspberry Lane for only an hour. Jack didn’t have much to move in. He mowed the lawn every Saturday, standing over the diagonal lines in a sweaty tshirt afterward with a lemonade in one hand. He painted CHAPEL on the mailbox. Lisa added a pink cross next to it. Jack saw it the next day as he pulled into the driveway. He was out by the curb with the black paint a moment later.

It adds joy, Lisa said. She held Rudy under her chin, shushing in his ear and shading his eyes.

It’s pink, Jack said, bending to see at an angle and touching up one more spot. And we’ve just had a boy.

It lets people know that we’re Christians.

Everybody in Nebraska is Christian, honey. Our last name is Chapel. You put a pink cross on there and people will think we’re reading scripture in our basement. They’ll be ringing our door for the morning service.

We don’t even have a basement.

Don’t I know it.

Graham came the next year and Wade the following fall. Jack had to convert the garage with drywall to make a third room. He added a single window on the street side, and a heating vent to the floorboards, but it remained too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer. Lisa found Rudy in the hall one morning, huddled small over the heat vent. She sewed together old blankets into a cover and made heavy blankets for her boys.

It broke my heart to see him curled over the heater, Jack. Just broke my heart.

When Hannah came along, the three boys moved into the converted garage bedroom. The first night, the boys fought over the top bunk. They were supposed to rotate every month, but Rudy didn’t much care to have the top bunk, and Wade was too small to pull Graham from it. Lisa Chapel rocked her baby in the nursery while the boys tore