The Unforgettable Guinevere St. Clair Page 23

  Gaysie shrugged as the swing made a perilous creaking sound.

  I began to make a contingency plan if the swing fell.

  “But there were many silver linings from that horrific day. For instance, I’ve never forgotten the light.”

  “What about . . . the dead people you saw?”

  “Well, you see, they weren’t dead at all! I saw my friends. Vienna and Jed and Myron. I realized I wasn’t as alone as I sometimes felt. I also saw a piece of my future: four children who would need me. That was all it took. When I saw them, there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do to get back. I was in the hospital for months, and it was very hard. Gall bladder, spleen, skull, face.” She pointed to the long, hideous scar down the side of her face. “My brain was swollen to twice its size. It’s unexplainable why I don’t have brain damage. Though I suppose that’s debatable, isn’t it?”

  “I’m hungry,” Vienna said again. Gaysie reached over and took one of Vienna’s hands so that both of their hands were lying in my lap. “After the accident I was broken for a very long time, but life becomes okay again when you have people who love you. Even if things aren’t the same.”

  My hands were covered by the hands of a woman who didn’t know she was my mother, and my archenemy. Maybe I was going to need a new one.

  I glanced at Vienna, chomping on her gum. She giggled, squeezing her pink Care Bear.

  “Tell me a story,” she said. “I like Guinevere.”

  So I told her a story, not about Guinevere the legend written in books, but about the real girl, the Guinevere St. Clair who happened to be a lot like her unforgettable mother.

  CHAPTER 34

  THERE’S GOING TO BE A funeral for Wilbur,” Officer Jake said. I was in bed, but found my eavesdropping skills undiminished. “Coroner said it was his heart, wore out from old age. His head was banged up a bit like he fell and tumbled right into the river.” He sounded relieved to speak of death due to natural causes instead of something more sinister.

  “We’ve got to start thinking about a service or memorial for Jimmy, too.”

  “But he hasn’t been found,” my father said, like Jimmy was a lost puppy instead of a dead boy. “You can’t have a service if there’s no . . .” body. He meant “body.”

  “I said we’ve got to start thinking. With the flooding and strong current, we may never find him, Jed. He could be all the way to the Mississippi by now, pinned under some rocks somewhere. . . .”

  A teacup rattled noisily on a saucer.

  “This is the kind of thing that can pull a community together or pull it apart. I want to be ahead of it, let people start grieving together,” Officer Jake said. “The Quintels don’t have the money for a proper funeral. They won’t ask for help. . . .”

  “We’ll take care of it,” my father said.

  “If everyone pitches in . . .”

  “All of it,” my father said. “We’ll take care of it.”

  Officer Jake sighed. “Heard your little girl wasn’t doing so well, Jed, but I’d like to talk to her, take a full statement, and try to understand what happened out there.”

  “She can’t talk, Jake,” my father said. “She’s barely . . .”

  “Just for a minute.”

  “Not yet,” my father said firmly.

  I sunk lower in my white sheets, no longer crisp and cool. I breathed in the warm, comfortable air and let the pale lavender-scented cotton fall across my face. I finally knew what had happened to Wilbur, but it didn’t make a bit of difference.

  • • •

  Dr. Long came again, but I refused to talk to him.

  He stared at me gravely while examining my facial color, gauging my reactions, pinching my cheeks, holding my arms up and letting them drop limply back onto the bed. He turned on his small flashlight and shone it in my eyes until I closed them.

  When he left, Bitty stood at the foot of my bed holding her doll Annie Bessy. I beckoned her with my eyes, suddenly missing her as terribly as a phantom limb. This realization was terrifying; that my brain could still recognize the absence of someone. I’d been through this before. I could not, would not, think of missing Jimmy.

  Vienna wandered in holding Love-a-Lot as Dr. Long’s voice floated into our room.

  “I can’t do much else for her. There’s physically nothing wrong. But it’s obvious she’s barely functioning. Her heart sounds fine, and I know you’ve had both the girls checked out—but maybe we’re missing something. You should consider taking her into Des Moines and hospitalizing her, to see what can be done. I’m sorry . . . There have been cases like this. Sometimes traumatic events damage a child so much, that they . . . change and never quite recover.”

  And then something remarkable happened. For the first time since we moved to Crow, Nana began to howl, like she was having a full-fledged adult meltdown.

  I perked right up. Nana knew full well that there was nothing wrong with my heart, so why should she be affected by such a ridiculous statement? Uh, Nana, I was the fastest girl runner in New York, a climber of trees, an up-and-coming, world-famous lawyer! That Dr. Long—how dare he mention my heart to Nana after everything with Vienna? That was as good as telling Nana I was already dead.

  In his perfected, coping voice, I heard my father calming Nana down.

  Bitty turned her head to me and put her hands on her hips, her lips turned down in a powerful pout. Sweet Bitty rarely bossed me. “Gwynnie,” she said sternly.

  “Gwynnie,” Vienna mimicked.

  Nana unleashed another loud yowl.

  Bitty tapped her foot on the floor. “Move it, tootsie.”

  Vienna clapped her hands like it was the funniest thing she’d ever heard. “Move it, tootsie! Move it, tootsie.”

  Using my upper body, I raised myself into a sitting position. My legs went over the bed and my bare toes dangled. Slowly, I inched forward until my toes touched the cold wooden floor, and I stood without help for the first time in days.

  Putting one foot in front of the other, I slid one stiff leg across the bedroom floor, down the hall, and into the kitchen. Slide, push, slide, push.

  Bitty smiled. Vienna clapped all the way down the hall.

  Dr. Long, Nana, and my father turned.

  “Ha ha ha,” Vienna said, behind me. “You need a hairbrush!”

  Nana’s eyes opened wide. My father rose.

  I fixed my eyes on Dr. Long.

  “Don’t you make my nana cry!” I yelled at the doctor. “Don’t you dare. There’s nothing wrong with my heart, and I’m not going to die until I’m darn good and ready!” Except I didn’t say “darn.”

  I never saw my nana so happy to hear me swear in all my life.

  “Nope,” my father said. “My Gwyn has never had a weak heart.”

  CHAPTER 35

  THE LATE-AFTERNOON SUN HUNG ORANGE over wet, brown fields. Soon, it would touch the horizon line and pretend to fall off the edge of the flat plains of Crow. A black night would come as a hopeless feeling sometimes does.

  And then slowly, I knew the unconquerable sun would begin to rise out of the dark. This is what I clung to, that life might go on.

  But the sun hadn’t fallen yet as I sat on the porch in my white nightgown and bare feet. The white nightgown was from Nana, who would prefer that I die in something sweet and respectable versus the ratty pajamas I’d brought from New York. It happens, I remember a woman once saying with an unemotional shrug of her shoulders as I sat in a hospital waiting room many years earlier. People leave us. They shouldn’t, but they do. It happens.

  I wasn’t going to die though. I knew that now. I couldn’t. Nana, Bitty, Micah, and Willowdale Princess Deon Dawn—they’d never forgive me. Vienna would miss my stories. Gaysie would be very disappointed in my lack of gumption. And my father, well, every dentist needed a decent lawyer on staff.

  Bitty had brought Willowdale to the front porch to see me, but unfortunately, she was more interested in eating Nana’s tulip bulbs.

  Micah sat
on Nana’s porch like he’d been there the whole time I’d been in bed. I’d lost track of the time, how many days had passed, how long he might have sat waiting for me.

  “Hi, Gwyn,” Micah said. “I’ve been waitin’ for you to come out.”

  We sat in silence for a few moments.

  “I’m sorry about Wilbur,” I finally said.

  “Yeah. Do you think he’s with him?” Micah asked.

  “Who?” I asked, knowing exactly who he meant.

  “Do you think he’s watching us like an angel?”

  “Jimmy, an angel!” I almost laughed out loud at that one.

  “I just wish I knew where he was,” Micah said.

  “Me too.”

  “I wrote him a poem on my typewriter,” Micah said, pulling out a crumpled piece of paper.

  “Let me hear it.”

  Micah pushed up his glasses, which I suddenly noticed were new. He smoothed his flyaway duck hair and began to read dramatically, like Gaysie would have.

  For Jimmy, from Micah. Your best friend forever.

  Once there was a boy named Jimmy.

  He came for breakfast, stayed for dinner.

  And when we played

  he sometimes let me be the winner.

  He found a raft

  and let it ride

  All the way to the Mississippi

  “Go on,” I said.

  “That’s it so far. I can’t find a word that rhymes with ‘Mississippi,’ ” Micah said.

  “That’s a real good start, Micah,” Bitty said.

  Micah sniffed back a sob. “He always said he was going to leave Crow and never come back, but I didn’t really believe him. And now I don’t have a best friend—or a barber.”

  “I’ll cut your hair,” I said.

  “And I’ll be your best friend!” Bitty smiled hopefully.

  Micah attempted a smile.

  “Ma says that Jimmy’s just waiting on the other side of the river.”

  We sat forlorn, seeing him so clearly in our minds, riding the raft.

  “What does that mean?” Bitty asked.

  “She means that Jimmy . . . will be waiting for us one day.”

  As we sat on the front steps, the wind began to blow. My matted hair blew up around my face. I inhaled and closed my eyes.

  “Tell me a story?” Bitty asked, sounding like Vienna.

  “I don’t have any more stories.”

  “Please? One with Jimmy in it?”

  “No.”

  “Please?”

  I sighed, with no intention of bringing Jimmy into the story. But he came anyway. He was skateboarding and flying off a tall skateboard ramp, landing splendidly at our feet as he tossed his black hair out of his eyes. He crowed like a Lost Boy because he was one now, and he was happy that way. Now he would never have to wear a tie, go to school, or clean his room. He was perfectly happy in Neverland and sometimes rode a magical white unicorn. He was the leader of a gang of other Lost Boys who never had to grow up either.

  Jimmy knew every yo-yo trick, wasn’t afraid of the dark, haunted the Creepers, jumped out of windows, and could even fly. I spoke so fast, with such animation that I could hardly breathe. Micah and Bitty leaned forward, Willowdale stopped mid-chew—caught on my every word.

  Micah stared off into the distance, his mouth slightly open.

  Unfortunately, I had made the story so real that Bitty stood up and began to scream Jimmy’s name.

  “Oh, Bitty—” I began.

  Micah stood with her, tripped down the front stairs, and began yelling Jimmy’s name too. They were like two wild coyotes yowling in the night.

  Willowdale mooed noisily.

  “Jimmy!” Bitty screamed, closing her eyes tightly.

  I stood, reached for her hand.

  “Jimmy!” Bitty screamed again, opening her eyes wide and jumping off the steps.

  “No, Micah,” I said. “Don’t let her.”

  But Bitty wouldn’t listen. She wriggled free of me and began running down the road like she could actually see that white unicorn. Micah took off after her. I stood in my white nightgown, squinting.

  There was a boy walking down the road. He was not riding a magical white unicorn. He was hobbling and wore a crooked smile on his face, but he looked real, with a black, unkempt, overgrown Mohawk. He began to walk faster.

  I grasped the cold porch railing as Bitty and Micah ran until they were upon him. They smashed into the boy, the two of them enveloping, almost carrying him from behind. I walked down the front steps and onto the road with my bare feet, feeling the sharp pebbles and the dirt.

  He was dirty, his clothes were ripped, and he looked like he hadn’t slept for a year.

  “Are you the ghost of Jimmy Quintel?” I asked.

  He held out his hand to me. I grasped it as Micah cried next to him, Bitty jumping up and down. I squeezed Jimmy’s hand, thin and calloused with skin over real bones. It was real—as real my own hand. I squeezed real hard.

  “Stop crying, Micah!” he said weakly. “Stop being such a baby.” But he said it affectionately as he put his arm around Micah.

  “We thought . . .”

  He shrugged and said, “Did I miss my own funeral?”

  “No!” I shouted.

  “Shoot. Not as good as Huck and Tom, but still, it’s pretty good, huh?”

  CHAPTER 36

  JIMMY WAS TREATED FOR HYPOTHERMIA, minor cuts and bruises, and malnutrition. We didn’t see him for two whole days, and then one day Jimmy came riding down the road on his skateboard, right back to Gaysie’s.

  He was something of a celebrity at school. Mrs. Law still took away his skateboard, but she smiled when she did it. We had a new understanding with the Creepers. We weren’t exactly on speaking terms, but they started playing kickball with us at recess. All the girls wrote Jimmy notes and cards, and the boys gave him things like a football, a duct tape wallet, and their snacks. Yeah, our Jimmy was living large, and I didn’t begrudge him one bit.

  Jimmy said he found himself floating atop the water. He opened his eyes and all he saw were blue skies and a big river. When his raft eventually caught up with him, he took it as a sign. He decided he’d sail to the Mississippi and never come back. But after a while, he said he got bored without us, said it wasn’t any fun riding the river alone. Getting home, though, was a difficult trip. Surviving on squirrel nuts and a duck egg, he walked the long way home.

  I knew he was telling a tall tale. I’d overheard my father talking to Dr. Long. Jimmy had hurt his ankle and back going over the waterfall. He lay beside the river for days before he could move again, very nearly dying from starvation and hypothermia. It was a wonder he got home at all. But I let Jimmy tell us his story.

  “Did you hitchhike?” I asked. I had always wanted to hitchhike.

  He looked at me like I was deranged. “Gaysie would have killed me!”

  “Jimmy,” Micah asked. “Are you saying you missed us? That’s why you came back?”

  He smiled his crooked smile. “Nah, I’m not sayin’ that at all.”

  Our routine slowly went back to what it had been, with a few changes. Nana was different, like she had survived the worst and come out okay. It didn’t change her completely, of course. Like my father always said: “Neurons that fire together, wire together.” She still followed me around with a jacket and a piece of floss, but she was a tad bit more relaxed, like she was resigned to future shenanigans that would surely come with raising a child of Vienna St. Clair.

  We went to school and lingered at Micah’s, just like before. With renewed vigor, Gaysie worked in the fields, stomping around in her big men’s boots until one day she drove the Blue Mistress again. Seeing her out there, I felt the curiosity rising once more: There may have been an “official” explanation about Wilbur’s death, but what exactly did Gaysie Cutter know about it? How was she so sure, right from the beginning, that he wasn’t coming back for a cup of coffee or a plate of dinner? Had she seen him hit his
head and fall in the water or . . . had she hit his head? I tried to control my imagination. A direct link, facts. Nothing circumstantial, my father would say. And anyway, did I even want her to be guilty anymore?

  We watched Gaysie out in the field. Mud churned violently into the air, spinning onto her pants, boots, and hair.

  “Wilbur would like her using the tractor,” Micah said, twirling around in circles, his hands out wide and free.

  “What’s she doing?” Bitty asked. She was wearing a blue hat Nana had knit, her blond curls sticking out underneath.

  “Putting everything back in the ground,” Micah said, stumbling wildly around, trying to steady from his twirl.

  We watched the Blue Mistress stop, hover, then scoop up a large vat of mud.

  “The floods washed her whole cemetery up,” Jimmy said.

  I shook my head. Officer Jake sure wasn’t much of a law enforcer, letting her do this.

  Gaysie was grumbling when she walked toward us sitting on the porch. She sat heavily in her rocking chair. It gave a mighty creak as she wiped her forehead with the back of her dirty hand.

  She glared at Jimmy, who was walking the porch railing like a tightrope circus performer.

  “Jimmy Quintel, when you died, it was like a giant vacuum sucked all the happiness out of Crow.”

  Jimmy smiled and kept tightrope walking.

  “Did you ever think you were going to die?” I asked.

  He shrugged.

  “Well, you almost did,” Micah said. “You went over the waterfall.”

  Gaysie took a deep, noisy breath. “Jimmy, it was a terrible time. Now, get off my railing before you either break my porch or your neck.”

  He spun in the air as he jumped off the railing and somersaulted across the grass.

  “As long as I’ve lived in Crow, nobody, and I mean nobody has gone over that waterfall and lived to tell about it,” Gaysie said.

  “How’d you do it?” I shuddered, remembering the swift and unforgiving current.

  “I just had to wait,” he said, “until it took me over to the side.”

  “You have to go where the current takes you,” Gaysie said. “Don’t I know it.”